


'Tis Charity To Show  Part Two

by ProvidenceMine



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Altered Mental States, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Break Up, F/M, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Interspecies Sex, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Orion, Post-Break Up, Racism, Solaris Event Horizon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:40:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26952283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProvidenceMine/pseuds/ProvidenceMine
Summary: Janice Rand, Spock, Kevin Riley and their landing party are stranded in an abandoned Federation site.
Relationships: Janice Rand/Original Male Character
Kudos: 3





	'Tis Charity To Show  Part Two

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually a multi chapter work, but I published my work as it appeared on my blog. If reading the story as long scroll is too difficult please drop me a line and I will try to rectify it as I don't find the chapter insertion to be too user friendly.

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter IV  
Part 5

It wasn’t the furnishings in the small cramped room that gave it its clutter; there was only a desk, a chair, and a slender cabinet in the whole area. Boxes of artifacts and specimens sorted and unsorted, knapsacks of tools, and a plethora of digital devices, were what crowded what was fairly small space. No expense was spared in that every corner of Dr. Ellis’ office was being utilized for all they were worth. 

But in spite of the orderly compartmentalizing of items in the room, Rand had a difficult time navigating through the narrow pathways created by all the stuff. Clearing what she could so she could create a clear space for herself at the desk, Rand sat down, took the wafers out of the leather envelope and spread them out onto the desk in fan-like formation. She pulled out all the wafers that have been dated and placed them aside, taking the undated wafers and replacing them back into the envelope.

“No need listening to wafers with nothing on them,” she quipped.

Rand sighed and looked out of the window that was right over her desk. The sun was not as high up as before, and the sky was a slightly darker shade of turquoise as was characteristic of the afternoon. She gazed onto the warm- hued, darkly sanded landscape and thanked God there was a window in this miserable little closet of a room, or she’d have to burst a hole in the walls just to stop from feeling like they were closing in on her.

Rand put the leather envelope aside and pulled Dr. Ellis’ recorder towards her. 

“At least she left the thing on the desk so I wouldn’t have to fish for it,” she thought.

The recorder wasn’t portable like Rand’s, but a bulky, cumbersome, rectangular block of as device that resembled the old recorder of 20th Century Earth, except that the insides contained flat silver plates that operated wafers. Rand picked up the wafer with the earliest date, pressed the open button which flipped up the hatch to the recorder, and placed the wafer inside.

Closing the hatch to the recorder, Rand pressed the ‘on’ button, slumped in her chair and waited while tapping her feet to the floor. As a result of her yeoman training at the Academy, Rand was familiar with the various jargons used in many professions, but because her father was a professor of Anthropology and because she herself had a degree in the same field, she was especially familiar with the jargon that Dr. Ellis would be using in her logs, like grid, in situ, debitage, test pit.

Having a working knowledge on anthropological and archeological terms wouldn’t mean a damn thing if the Good Archeologist mentioned nothing that might give her leads on their disappearance.

“This is the log of Dr. Adrienne Ruth Ellis on the date of…”

“Oh, boy,” thought Rand.

The voice of Dr. Ellis wasn’t going to make this task any easier, since it had a flat, drone-like quality to it that made Rand recall many a heavy-lidded period where she fought mightily to keep her head from thudding on her classroom desk. Recounts of a new found artifact, what it might have been used for and the minute detail of its physical characteristics, coupled with that voice, was enough to send Rand into a tailspin of a stupor.

“Always fun to revisit my college days,” she groaned, throwing her head back in mock self-pity.

This was going to be a long one!

Yuck.

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter IV  
Part 6

Literally an hour had passed and nothing had changed since Rand had turned on the recorder; the mind-numbing, drone-like reams of entries on Dr. Ellis’ uneventful working days came at her like paint balls, pelting her with useless information and no possible leads.

Rand yarned, not even bothering to stifle it. She needed a break, but she pressed on, knowing that there were more wafers and more logs that needed her attention. Rand brought her hands up level to her chin and looked down into her nails, wishing she could get a manicure.

“I can’t really understand this. I don’t know if it’s too much exposure from the sun or what, but I’m getting these dry, patchy rashes on my arms and shoulders. It’s becoming fairly distracting to me. I’ll have to go to Dr. Grimes to see if she has anything for them. This can’t be my childhood eczema, that’s certain, since I was cured of that condition when I was 8 years old…”

Rand reached over and pushed the ‘off’ button in utter exasperation. 

“What you need, lady, is a cure for is your talent of bringing on catatonic inducement,” Rand said in hopeless disgust.

Like she thought to herself before, she needed a break. 

Now, she was taking one.

Leaving the wafer inside the recorder, Rand scooped up the remaining wafers on the desk and stacked them, placing them next to the leather envelope. She pushed herself away from the desk and got up from her chair when something made her pause midpoint.

“What the hell’s that?” It was coming from behind the door.

That noise.

What was making that racket? Was someone moving furniture?

“It sounds like a lot more furniture than we have out there.”

Puzzled, Rand turned away from the desk and went to the door and opened it. She poked her head out, stretching out her neck and leaning towards that noise. Then, stepping out of the office and closing the door behind her, Rand walked down the hall, the noise getting louder as she got closer to the meeting room. She turned the corner and then suddenly stopped, taking in the peculiar sight in front of her.

“What is all this?”

Obstructing the door to the meeting room was a row of chairs, small tables, tools, carts and containers, some were set up straight, some were upturned like they were knocked over, very much like the way the furniture was left when the landing party first got here.

“What’s all this stuff doing out in the hall?”

Was the floor being mopped? Rand, incredulous, looked up from all the stuff in the hall to see Riley pushing the couch she had sat on earlier in the day.

“Riley?”

She headed over to the meeting room, angling her way to the side so as to not injure herself among the chaos. 

On entering the meeting room, Rand saw that the row of stuff formed a curving line that went from the hall to the middle of the room’s interior, with pieces of furniture and other items that she was seeing for the first time since staying at this site. At the end of all this mess was Riley, standing from a distance, his eyes narrowed, his stance wide-legged, his arms stiff and away from his body. He was a man focused, obsessed, his head scanning over the furniture, the tools, the containers, the carts.

“Uh, excuse me! Riley! What in the hell are you doing? What is all this? Why are all these things out here? Where’d you get all this?”

She looked at Riley, baffled, her arms outstretched to her sides, palms facing up.

Riley spoke to her, though he never took his eyes off his monstrosity, as he stepped up to an upright stool, picked it up, laid it to its side, and stepped back.

“Earth to Riley! What the hell are you doing?”

Rand raised her voice, even though she was sure Riley had heard her the first time. Finally, he turned to her indignantly, like an artist interrupted while working on his masterpiece.

“For your information, I’m making my obstacle course!”

“Your what?”

“My obstacle course, for Christ’s Sake! You went to the Academy! You know what they are!”

“You’re making an obstacle course,” Rand said more as a statement than a question.

“An obstacle course, yes!”

“Uh, why Kevin?”

“Why?” Riley asked the question like it should have been obvious to her. “I’m gonna tackle an obstacle course that’ll put that asshole’s to shame!”

“Asshole? What asshole?”

“Russo!”

Rand took a beat and really looked at Riley, not quite believing what she was hearing.

“Russo? You mean your instructor from back in the Academy?” Rand asked this question in a low, deliberate voice, like she was talking to a mental patient brandishing a butter knife. 

Well, he certainly was being mental!

“That instructor from back in the Academy gave me a C grade, remember? I told you about him!” he implored, his palms facing up, his fingers clenching desperately. “He totally fucked up my GPA! I told you that!”

“Okay, yeah. But that was a long time ago, Kevin. You’re a navigator on one of the finest ships in Starfleet, and you didn’t have to make up any classes. You graduated with the rest of your class. You need to get over it, and you can’t have all this crap out here.”

Rand walked over to the stool that Riley had earlier rearranged. “I’ve never seen this stool before. A lot of this stuff I’m seeing for the first time.” 

Riley shrugged. “They were in storage.”

“Storage?” 

“The door at the very end of the pantry. There’s stools, more folding tables and chairs, shelves.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Rand picked up the stool and turned to Riley. “Thanks for telling me where you found all this junk, ‘cause I’m putting it all back ASAP.”

“What do you mean?”

“What? You want me to spell it out for you? I’m putting this stuff back and you’re going to help me, since you’re the one who made the mess with all this shit.”

“Put that stool down,” said Riley threateningly.

“Kevin, you can’t have all this stuff out here just because you have some ancient vendetta towards some past gym instructor. Now, if you’re not going to help me then move out of the way.”

“You’re not going anywhere with that! Put that down,” yelled Riley stomping his foot, his fist clentched.

Rand lowered her eyes at Riley, like a parent gently scolding a whiney child misbehaving in the aisle of a busy grocery store.

“Now stop this, Kevin,” she said levelly. “I’m putting this stuff away…”

“No, you don’t!

“Kevin…”

Riley rushed towards Rand and accosted the stool she was carrying with both hands, pulling at its legs viciously while Rand held on to its seat, pulling back with equal fervor. 

“Kevin, this is childish! Put the damn stool down!”

Riley’s face was a bright red as he yanked, pulled, and even threw in an occasional kick at Rand’s ankles.

“You put the chair down and leave my obstacle course alone! Leave me alone, you cunt!”

What?

Did he just call me cunt?

That did it!

Feeling herself losing her composure, Rand released the chair in utter disgust, allowing Riley to tumble backward to the floor, his legs flaling in the air. Rand went over to Riley and stood over him, jabbing an accusing finger at him while he stared up at her, his face grimacing from the contact the back of his head made with the floor.

“If I’m a cunt, then I can just get Mr. Spock to help you clean up this shit!” 

Rand then took a breath, fighting to regain her cool. She crossed her arms and turned her head to the side, raising her brows in an expression that both dared Riley to do something else stupid and condescended him for being stupid in the first place.

“You like Mr. Spock, don’t you? Always a pleasure to work with him,” she said smugly.

Indeed, Rand hoped that this tactic would work, since she really didn’t want to have to call on Spock herself. Not after that episode yesterday. Let Riley deal with Spock all by himself should the first officer decide to leave his quarters and see this absurd trailing mess.

“You know dinner should be ready in about an hour, so I f think it would be best if you started on this now so that we can have a place to sit down and place our food, genius!”

Rand looked at Riley sitting on the floor and thought to herself how much he looked like a child, sitting there poking his lip out, his shoulders haunched. She shook her head and started to turn when she heard a thick clang, like something falling on the floor, so she turned to see what is was.

“What the…”

Rand felt her right foot get caught under something, and by the time she realized it was a small cart laid on its side she lost her balance and tumbled, arms waving about wildly in a sorry attempt to regain herself, her body falling hard on the metal cart, its edges hitting her simultaneously in her chest and upper thighs.

Rand laid there, spilled over the cart, the pain in her chest and thighs stabbing and ebbing into her muscles and flesh in waves of numbing, excruciating punishment. 

She struggled to get up from the cart, but Rand was in such pain that she opted to stay where she was until the pain lessened, until she could get up. During this time, Rand heard something, something rather out of place in light of what just happened to her.

“HA HA HA HA HA…..”

Laughter?

Was she hearing right?

Riley was standing over her, his body doubled up in laughter, high-pitched, maniacal. 

He laughed so hard that, at one point, he had to sit back down on the floor, fat tears streaming down his cherry red face, his mouth contorting widely like a zoo animal at feeding time.

Yuck it up, ass wipe! 

Rand felt the rage build in her, rising from the soles of her feet to the top of her head, boiling inside her body. 

She wanted to rush him, beat him down like a hammer to a nail, until he was buried in the floor, but she was in too much pain to move. Rand could only watch while Kevin Riley’s laughter became more and more hoarse, discordant, as he reveled in a twisted sort of fun at her expense.

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter V  
Part 1

Rand was still smarting from the nasty fall she suffered earlier, and when she recovered she had to muster up every ounce of willpower inside her to withhold the urge to sock Riley in the jaw. Instead, she had elected to go to her quarters and lie down for a while. 

Rand stood in the dining room and was pleased to see that the table and chairs were exactly where they were supposed to be; nothing was missing, nothing was in disarray, so dinner could be served. She could thank Dr. Begay and Scotty for putting all the furniture and other things back where Riley had found them. She even gave kudos, albeit reluctantly, to Nurse Rose for fixing Riley with a healthy shot of hypo right smack in the arm.

Satisfied, she walked over to the kitchen and saw Scotty busy at the coffee pot, measuring coffee and gingerly pouring it into the metal filter. This sight made Rand smile, so she walked over to Scotty at the counter and decided to needle him a bit.

“So, you’re trying to steal my job, eh?” she asked teasingly, leaning in over the countertop to where Scotty was.

On hearing Rand, Scotty turned from behind the counter and smiled bashfully.

“Wuh, w-well, r-r-ruh-regardl-luh-lesss of w-w-whose on m-m-muh-meeal d-duh duty, ya-ya-you always m-m-muh-makke the coffeee. I wuh-wuh-waaanted t-to ga-give yooou a b-bree- break,” he stuttered, standing proudly over his handiwork while the coffee percolated in the pot.

“Oh, that’s so sweet of you, Scotty! Thank you.”

Poor Scotty. She hoped that she wasn’t wincing too much while he had been talking to her, but Scotty’s stuttering had gotten much worse, and understanding him was becoming more difficult.

No, difficult wasn’t the word to use here. Difficult was being kind.

Try painful.

The word was brutal, but it was certainly more accurate.

Scotty’s smile faded from his face as he turned away from Rand, reached for a coffee cup and a saucer from a basin under a small cart, and placed them in front of her. He seemed sad, the look on his face betraying a kind of turmoil.

“I-Immm s-suh-sorry about th-th-thu-thiss st-st-stuh-stuttering. I cuh-can’t unnderstuh-stand ittt. I-h-h-huh-haven’tt st-st-stuhttered s-since I w-w-wuh-was a w-w-w-weee little th-thing.”

He shook his head hopelessly, drawing his lips tightly together.

“I never knew you had a stuttering problem as a child, Scotty,” Rand said softly.

Scotty nodded his head timidly, almost in an apologetic manner.

“Yup,” he said. It was the only word he was able to say without stuttering. “I-I-I knuh-know-I t-t-tuh-tollld Kh- Khuh-Khhobrannn. We t-t-t-tuhkk- a l-l-l-luh-lottttt.”

“Oh, really?” Rand asked warily, wondering why Khobran never told her this little fact, since they shared just about everything together. Well, who was she kidding after that little fiasco of hers. 

She quickly pushed any thoughts of Khobran away, not wanting to experience any loneliness at all, not wanting her heart to dwell there, not wanting to even think about the hurt.

She smiled gently at Scotty and reached for his hand that was on the counter and patted it reassuringly.

“Don’t worry about it, Scotty Ol’ Boy. Things have been kind of crazy around here, in case you haven’t noticed.”

They both laughed. Rand couldn’t speak for the others, but she knew that she never mentioned anything about Scotty’s stuttering out of embarrassment for him, and had tried to act as if he didn’t have the problem at all, even after Riley’s cruel remark in the meeting room earlier.

“Do I see Scotty making coffee?! Heart be still! I sure hope I don’t get the runs after drinking it,” Riley said on entering the kitchen.

Then don’t drink it, asshole.

Scotty’s mood brightened as he turned to Riley and shook his fist playfully at him.

“Y-yuh-you n-n-nuh-neeeed the r-r-ruhns ‘caussse yuh-yourre f-f-f-fuuullll offffff ittttt!”

“I’ll second that,” exclaimed Dr. Begay not too far behind Riley. “But Scotty, I’m warning you, it better be good, because no one makes a cup of coffee like Janice!” He flashed a smile at Rand, placing a hand over his heart.

She smiled back at Begay, but there was something about his demeanor that struck her; something tightly coiled and edgy behind the good naturedness.

Rand shrugged. “Oh well,” she thought.

It was like she just told Scotty, things were kind of crazy around here. 

Everyone was on edge.

When the pot finished percolating, Scotty took it by the handle and poured Rand a cup.

“Oh, talk about first class service! Thanks, Scotty!”

Scotty bowed his head, smiling broadly.

“God, I’m starving,” said Nurse Rose, grabbing a tray of food from the counter and hurrying to the dining room. 

Rand placed her cup of coffee on one of the trays and took it, carrying it to the dining area to sit down for supper. Claiming their chairs, everyone sat around the table and engaged themselves in conversation, all except Mr. Spock, who sat quietly at the end of the table, steepling his hands over his food, lost in thought, closing himself off from everyone else, into his own world.

“Well, good of him to join us for dinner,” thought Rand sarcastically as she found her place at the table, placing her tray in front of her. 

It was never too difficult to be intimidated by Mr. Spock, most people were. But, there was something particularly uncomforting in his presence since the mission had started, so Rand just assumed sitting as far to the other end of the dining room table as possible if she was going to have a fairly relaxing meal with the rest of her colleagues.

Riley was sitting across from Rand, talking incessantly, throwing around gestures and posturing; his was the loudest voice at the table. Rand rolled her eyes. She’d just about had her fill of Riley. The other members of the landing party, however, had their necks craned out in his direction, eager to listen in.

When Riley turned his head towards the giggling Nurse Rose, Rand spotted a small cluster of whiteheads right in the center of his cheek. They hadn’t been there when they had their little run-in in the meeting room earlier.

“Riley? Are those pimples on your cheek?” she asked rather bluntly. She was still pretty pissed at him and didn’t give a rat’s ass about his feelings right now. 

Visibly perturbed with the interruption, Riley reached over with his left hand and brushed his fingers rather hastily over his right cheek.

“Oh, yeah,” he said flatly, shrugging his shoulders. “I guess they popped up during the afternoon or something, I don’t know.”

Riley cocked his head to the side just then, his eyes aimed upward, like an idea had just come to him. “Funny though, since I haven’t had any kind of acne since junior high school. The girls used to call me ‘connect-the-dots-face’…” His voice trailed off before he shrugged his shoulders again, this time with more emphasis. 

Shaking his head vehemently, Riley reached up and waved both hands in the air in violent, dismissive movements, like an angry spectator in the bleachers of a ballgame. He changed the subject without missing a beat, resuming back to his ravings about how he was going to beat Mr. Russo at his own game. He went on about being royally screwed on his GPA to the point of exaggerated idiocy. Even Nurse Rose began to show signs of impatience, her own eyes rolling while her head bobbed back and forth in a gesture that clearly said she’d heard this all before.

“Look, Riley! At least he didn’t fail you! He gave you a C. Not a D. Not an F. Not an incomplete…”

“That’s not the point! I had a perfect 3.5 GPA until Mister Tough Guy brought it down so that his little weenie would feel bigger!” 

“Weenie? What is this with guys and other guys’ penises?” thought Rand.

She took a deep breath before entering the conversation. “Look, Kevin. I’ve met people who were on their way back home because they couldn’t make it through the full training and were asked to leave! Count yourself lucky, Mister. You’re here, they’re home.”  
Scotty, Rose and Begay punctuated their nodes of agreement with muttered phrases like “that’s right” and “you got it.” Rand didn’t think this would stop Riley from his tirade of self-pity, but one can always hope, even if that sense of hope was dim.

Riley smirked and snorted at what Rand said. “Russo was petty and jealous of my special abilities,” he pronounced slapping his hand on his chest, his other hand pointing up in the air at absolutely nothing.

Oh, give me a break.

“I notice you have your finger pointing to the sky. May these gifts you speak of be of a divine nature?” asked Rand raising her brows mockingly.

During this whole conversation Spock continued in his semi-frozen state at the end of the table, detached from the others, his head slightly bent down over his meal, his hands still steepled. The only things active were his dark eyes, darting back and forth under his lowered brows like a predator bird.

Rose, on the other spectrum, was shoveling food down her mouth like she hadn’t eaten in days. Rand turned to her, noticing this behavior.

“Hungry, I see,” she said to the nurse with a small insincere smile across her lips.

Rose giggled, rather embarrassed, placing her head delicately over her mouth. “I know. Isn’t it terrible? I guess I didn’t realize how hungry I was, huh?”

“Guess not,” said Rand.

Their conversation was drowned out by Riley, who started to go into babbling detail about how low his GPA got, and how many As he needed to get his average back to its former glory.

“Exactly what is it that you do? Sit up all night and calculate these numbers for your records?” asked Dr. Begay in a biting tone. 

Rand could see that his patience with Riley was also running thin, his earlier good spirits put on the back burner.

“Joke about it all you want, Doc, you have no idea the work it took to get my GPA…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know! Russo fucked up your GPA! Russo was jealous! Russo has a tiny dick! Get off it, man! Ease up! No one here gives a flying fuck about your goddamn GPA! If you consider that failure, then you don’t know what failure is! A GPA can be fixed! Some things can’t be fixed or undone! Ponder that one for a while! Just shut up about your school tragedy! I’m out of here!”

Dr. Begay violently pushed himself away from the table, his chair skidding and falling behind him, and stomped away, out of the dining room. Everyone fell silent, including Riley, who sat dumbly in his own chair.

The crewmembers exchanged confused and startled looks across the table until Rose finally asked: “What’s with him?”

Rand shook her head. “I don’t know, but I’m gonna find out.” With that, she pushed herself away hurriedly from under the table and followed Dr. Begay.

“Mathias! Hey, wait up!” 

She followed him out into the dimly lit hall and picked up her pace. 

“God, this guy walks fast,” Rand thought to herself as she finally caught up with him, grabbing him by the arm. “Whoa, hold it! Mathias! Are you all right? I know Riley’s been a real pain in the…”

“Pain?! That’s putting it mildly, Janice!” The ferocity in the doctor’s voice jabbed her.

“Mathias. Look at me. What happened in there?”

Dr. Begay turned to face Rand, his eyes filled with sadness and rage. “Oh shit!” he spits out, throwing his hands in the air. “He gets me so damn sick and tired of his pathetic little vendetta against this Russo guy! Riley really needs to get a clue!”

Rand stood square in front of the doctor. She glared at him hard, her resoluteness making headway into Begay’s anger as he finally started to soften. The sadness in his eyes had overtaken the rage that had accompanied it just moments ago, showing itself in a deep-set hollowness.

Begay just stood there at first, looking away from Rand, not saying anything. Then, he looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath before he finally spoke.

“I thought I put those memories behind me…” His voice was so soft Rand barely heard him. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear…”

“Ever since stepping onto this planet they keep coming at me…”

“What keeps coming…?”

Begay shook his head absently, looking away from Rand. “They started out small. I was able to shrug them away and go on with the rest of the day. Now, I think about it every single waking moment! God, I thought I had put this all behind me! I thought I forgave myself…”

His voice rose in awkward, strained ramblings as if he was desperately trying to brainstorm a solution that wasn’t going to come. He was like a man in a lifeboat with a hole in it, splashing wildly while the sea closed in on him.

“Mathias! Just start from the beginning. Tell me what these memories are. That’s all you have to do.”

Rand took Dr. Begay by his chin and brought his face back to her own. She nodded her head just then, gently urging him to unload his burden. Begay drew his lips tightly together and folded his arms over his chest. He looked away from Rand again, but he calmly nodded, resigned to talk about what had been haunting him.

“I had literally just graduated from medical school back in the Midwest, and in lieu of a four year internship I took a paying job on an outpost on Gamma II. I honestly thought it would be better because I was getting paid, and it was professional experience in space under my belt, since that’s what I hoped to do in the future.”

He paused and shook his head, laughing ironically. “Let me tell you, I was in for a shock. The outpost was a run-down mining colony, almost makeshift in the way it was set up, like one good gust of wind would throw a building over. The place was desperate for resources—because they had none! Talk about isolation, it was so isolated that at times it could be days before any of our off-of-planet messages were answered.”

He paused before he went on. “Man, I should have taken the internship,” he said, his voice drifting. Dr. Begay walked away and positioned himself against the wall, leaning on it as if doing so might give him some much-needed strength, or so it seemed to Rand.

“Well, one day, there was an accident. Who am I kidding! It was a catastrophe! A faulty pipeline blew up under a residential complex that looked like it was put together by baking dough, yeast, wire, and spit. Trust me when I tell you it wasn’t even fit for a dog, the place was so poorly constructed. Families of miners lived there. Their children…their children…”

“Go on,” Rand urged softly, not moving from her spot.

“There was chaos everywhere! It was bedlam. The few doctors, nurses, and EMS personnel that were stationed there were completely overwhelmed with what they had to deal with. The resources we had were precious few so we scrambled around like rats for what we could get, what we could do.”

Begay’s arms uncurled from his chest to hug either side of his ribcage. He looked up at the ceiling, his breath shallow, like a man suffocating. He paused and took a long, shuttering breath before he started again, his words cracking under his emotional purgatory.

“There was a child. A boy about seven. He was literally eviscerated, his guts were spilling out of his intestinal area like spaghetti. I tried to hold his lower body together by stapling him, but he needed an operation! He was shattered down there! He needed an operation room with the proper instruments and everything else! We have that in Starfleet. Gamma II wasn’t Starfleet. Gamma II was nowhere, and everyone who lived there was treated as such. Forgotten. Even the medical staff--we were all straight out of school because I guess more experienced professionals knew better than to go there. We didn’t.”

He paused before he spoke again. “We waited for the ambulance to come, but the little boy was dead by the time it reached us. Honestly, even if they had made it on time, the resources were so few he probably wouldn’t have survived. Gamma II had a pathetic excuse for a hospital.

“If only we had the resources, that boy and many others would be alive today! I could have kept him alive until the ambulance reached him-- to take him to a good hospital!

“Well, after that fiasco I turned in my resignation and just left. I took the first shuttle to the next space station and went home, back to Earth, to the Midwest.” 

He smiled sheepishly, his eyes red. “You know, I always wanted to practice medicine in outer space, but after what happened on Gamma II I almost gave up practicing medicine all together…”

“But it wasn’t your fault, Mathias! To blame yourself for that child’s death is ludicrous! You were working with the cards you were dealt with! Could you help it if this godforsaken place had no resources…”

“Don’t you think I’ve said that to myself over and over, Janice?” he asked defeatedly. “Intellectually, I know I was handed a lousy deal, a contract with a certain amount of ‘missing’ provisions. But when you’re bent over a child whose dying in front of you, and you’re the one who’s supposed to be able to help him…but you fail to…all the reasons in the world…well, you know.”

“You didn’t give up, though. You became a Starfleet doctor—and an officer, I might add.”

“Yeah, right,” Begay chuckled. “After taking the plunge and accepting an internship in a big city hospital I made up for the wasted time an Gamma II, finished the required four years, took the entrance exam for Starfleet, and made it. Now, I work for an organization with top of the line resources, Thank God!”

The doctor slid down against the wall until he was squatting, his forearms slung over his knees. Rand looked at him for awhile, and then walked over and squatted down right in front of him.

“Hey, all we can ever do is learn from our ‘mistakes’, no matter how horrible the situation may be,” she said tapping him gently on the knee with the tip of her finger.

“I know you learn from it, I just don’t want to be consumed by it the way that I have been since coming here.”

“Yeah. This planet’s been doing a lot of funny things to us, all right. Look, I can’t make the thoughts go away but you can at least talk about them with me. Okay?”

“You don’t want to listen to me go on about Gamma II,” Begay said flatly.

“Yeah. Why not?” she asked with a shrug. “You tell me about Gamma II and I’ll tell you how much I’d like to turn Riley into a pretzel.”

They both laughed. “Come on, Mathias. Let’s go back and tackle that stuff Starfleet calls food,” she said hoisting herself up.

Dr. Begay slid up against the wall until he was fully erect and started walking back towards the dining room. When he and Rand entered the space, Spock was gone, and Scotty, Rose and Riley were looking at one another in anger and confusion.

“What’s going on here?” asked Rand.

“Mr. Spock told us to be finished eating in half an hour because we were having a night search,” said Nurse Rose.

“What?! That’s crazy! We’re not scheduled for any night searches on this mission! Where’s ‘Oh Magnificent One right now?”

“Probably in the maintenance room where we store the search gear,” said Riley in disgust.

“I’m too damn tired to go back on a search. Besides, this is our time to relax or continue with any individual work,” complained Rand.

“This is all very strange,” said Dr. Begay. “Very strange.” He placed his hands on his hips and looked at his fellow crewmembers pointedly. “I don’t understand it, but he is running the show. Who knows, he may have a theory that metes itself out and we end up finding something.”

“At night?! It just doesn’t make sense when we’re on a planet with daylight,” snorted Riley. 

“Besides, it’s like not these archeologists disappeared yesterday and an immediate search has to be done. This case has been ongoing. These people might not even be alive,” said Rand.

“It’s kinda weird, huh? I mean, what exactly is Mr. Spock trying to accomplish here?” asked Rose.

Scotty stepped forward with authority, placing his hands on his hips and drawing his mouth in tightly. He looked at the faces of the other landing party members like Begay had done earlier, before he finally shook his head and let out an exasperated sigh.

“Y-yuh-yourre g-g-guhess is asss g-g-good as m-m-muh-mine,” he declared.

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter V  
Part 2

“Utter nonsense!” Those were the two words that went through Rand’s head as she peered through her goggles into the inky-blackness of the night. The desert landscape was cast a washy florescent green by the special magnifying light of the eye gear, giving the planet a ghostly cast, almost like an alternate reality. Pebbles and rocks popped out at her, looking like glowing warts of a mythical beast.

Or did they look like boogers, Rand thought with contempt.

She looked across the way where Spock was deeply involved in the search, gazing intently into his tricorder.

Why the hell were we doing this?

The night search was an all-out blow to sensibility, as far as Rand was concerned. There was no pressing situation here that required a night search. A search such as this was done in situations where an incident happened at night, and a search party was sent out immediately after, as time was of the essence. This situation was almost a cold case, so even the best night equipment was no substitute for broad daylight, especially when evidence became a lot less reliable with the passage of time. 

But there was something else about this night search that really burned in Rand’s brain, stoked her.

“Mr. Spock. Is there any reason why we’re searching in the same exact spots that were searched this morning? Exactly what do you think the night goggles will pick up that the sun couldn’t? I mean, help me out here.”

Spock put down his tricorder and walked over to where Rand was. He removed his goggles slowly and stood in front of her, peering into her eyes in that disconcerting way of his. Rand didn’t remove her goggles but peered right back at him, unflinchingly. Her earlier fear of Spock was gone, something that came as a rather pleasant surprise to Rand.

Or maybe it was the goggles that made her feel safe.

“Might there be a problem, Yeoman?” he said, more as a statement than a question, his voice quietly condescending.

“I just told you the problem, Mr. Spock! If we couldn’t find anything in these parts under daylight, how are we going to suddenly find anything when it’s dark?”

Not only was Rand no longer afraid, she was downright irritated!

“One never knows what one can find with measured diligence, utmost attention to detail, and the most important element of all: logic. This is regardless of the particular time in which the search is being conducted.”

“Measured diligence and utmost attention to detail means nothing, sir, if our visions are obstructed by the night’s darkness.” She made sure her tone was delivered in the same clipped fashion that Spock delivered his words. “And there’s not much ‘intelligence’ in searching at night in a case like this.”

Spock’s gaze was steely, biting. “You are not in command here, Yeoman. I am the one who decides what is to be done pertaining to this search here.”

Rand opened her mouth to say something when Spock’s communicator went off. He pulled it from its holster and flipped open the top.

“Spock here.”

“Riley here, sir. We’ve search the area with a fine-tooth comb. There’s nothing here.”

“You have not searched for that long a duration of time, Mr. Riley.”

“Look, Mr. Spock. Me and Scotty searched long enough to know that nothing’s here! There’s no leads. Just like there were no leads this morning!”

Rand interjected. “Mr. Spock, can’t we just call it an evening and go back inside? I’m frankly tired, and I have a lot of work to do. I still have to get through the Ellis logs.”

Spock’s body went stiff, rigid. His lips drew into a tight indignant line before he spoke into his communicator again.

“We are continuing with this search until I give the word to end it. Spock out.”

“But, sir…”

Spock snapped his communicating device closed, effectively cutting Mr. Riley off mid-sentence. He was clearly a man who couldn’t be bothered. But just then, to Rand’s smug delight, his communicator went off again. 

At first, Spock held the communicator and simply looked at it, not taking any initiative to open it while it beeped in his hand.

“Aren’t you going to answer that, Mr. Spock?”

Beep. Beep.

Rand was loving this.

Spock opened his communicator, albeit with hesitation. “Spock here.”

“Dr. Begay here, sir.”

Rand tried to curb the smile that was forming at the corners of her mouth.

Here it comes.

“Nothing’s here, sir. No leads, no physical evidence. Just the same results we got this morning.”

Nothing’s here, just like this morning.

“The duration of time in your search has not been long enough to come up with any substantial find, Doctor.”

“With all due respect, it was. I just had a communication with Riley and Scotty and I’ve spoken to Nurse Rose. We’re all in agreement that this night search needs to wrap up, sir. We’re all pretty tired.”

“The fatigue of the landing party is not of my concern, Dr. Begay. However, if it proves to be an issue, you can always administer yourself and the others with stimulants. I will allow a few minutes for you to meet with the others for this.”

He’s got to be fuckin’ kidding me!

Rand felt herself grow hot in her cheeks as her anger mounted.

“Sir,” began Dr. Begay, the shaky resolve edging in a voice trying heroically to stay level. “I could perhaps understand if we were searching in parts not previously searched, but we’ve been through these areas with fine-tooth combs earlier in the day and we’ve found nothing. Nothing, sir! No amount of stimulants pumped into bodies that would do better with rest will be able to get the results you want from us!”

“I observe how you and Mr. Riley use the term ‘fine-tooth comb’ in expressing the amount of work that you believe you put into this search. Fascinating. If indeed the areas have been searched with a ‘fine-tooth comb’ then you would have, no doubt, discovered something. May I suggest in the future not to use such a term if it does not reflect the end result. Doing so is most illogical.”

Rand shook her head contemptuously at the Vulcan. She was about to go against orders by picking up her equipment and walking back to camp at this point. 

“Sir, if I may be so bold,” said Begay in a low steady voice that suggested challenge. “Have you asked Yeoman Rand about how she feels about the search?”

There was a silence from Spock that spoke volumes. He turned slowly to Rand, the communicator still open in the palm of his hand. 

For an uneasy moment, Rand thought she saw a glint of the ancient warlike predecessor in Spock’s eyes, a door into Vulcan’s violent past. 

Rand stood there crossing her arms, staring right back at him. She was a little frightened now, but she thought she hid it well. Besides, even Vulcans are not immune from a shot of the ol’ phaser if self-defense became necessary. She pursed her lips defiantly and cocked her head. The Vulcan was clearly outnumbered.

But he was still in command.

So what? 

The anger in Spock’s eyes was gone almost as quickly as it came. He raised his communicator to his lips again. “Perhaps, Doctor, the difference between humans and Vulcans may very well be stamina, determination and logic. We Vulcans, possessing all three of these traits, usually end up with far better results in whatever we endeavor.”

Now the communicator on Begay’s side fell silent, but Rand did not. She felt her rage bubble to the surface like a steaming pot of water, pushing itself out and spilling over.

“Excuse me, Mr. Spock, can I ask you a question? Have your ‘superior abilities’ been able to come up with any leads tonight, or earlier in the day for that matter? As a pairing, coupled with your ‘superior abilities’ you and I should be rolling in physical evidence by now, right? Oh, now wait a minute—wasn’t it Riley and Scotty, not one--but two lowly humans, who found those log entries, and not you?!”

When she was finished Rand stood there, shaking in her indignation, nervous but defiant. 

“There! I said it,” she thought.

The two stood there, facing each other. Spock’s eyes bore into Rand while she returned the favor with equal fervor. The winds of the desert whipped and flapped around and between them like careening vehicles, their deep scratchy bellows reverberating through the abandoned structures and dark wasteland. 

Finally, Spock broke eye contact, lowered his gaze to the ground, and took a long defeated breath; a white flag moment to put an end to the staring down.

“Dr. Begay, please contact the others to alert them that the search is to be wrapped up for the evening. We will resume tomorrow.”

“Very good, sir.” 

Spock quietly closed his communicator and replaced it back in its pouch.

Rand took a relieved breath herself and gathered her equipment. When she was finished collecting her things, she did what she had done after that first search. 

She slung her knapsack on her back and walked ahead of Mr. Spock without looking over her shoulder.

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter V  
Part 3

Rand’s anger was diffused considerably after a long, hot shower. The water jets did much to erase the knots and kinks in her body that had threatened to undo her after that pointless impromptu night search.

“Thank God that foolishness is over,” she thought in glorious relief while she revealed in the moist warmth of her freshly-washed skin. 

The heat in the building kept the chill of the night desert air at bay, allowing Rand to wear only a towel around her body, one wrapping her hair, and rubber thong sandals as she walked down the hall.

“Gotta love that Scotty,” she mused.

She wasn’t feeling much love for Mr.Spock, however. His behavior since landing on this planet was becoming more intolerable the longer they stayed here.

“What the hell’s coming over Spock , anyway? This superiority complex is enough to give anyone the Antebellum willies,” she thought, turning the corner to her room.  
When she reached her door she turned the knob and let herself in, walked into her room, turned to close the door behind her and tossed her toiletries purse onto her bed.

Rand turned away from the door and looked up, letting out a small startled cry.

Khobran was leaning against the table by the right side of the window looking over Rand’s bed. He was wearing the same jumpsuit everyone else was on this mission, now camouflaged a lifeless ashen brown like the color of her room.

“Khobran! Oh,My God! When did you get here? No one told me you were coming!”

Rand could hardly contain her elation, seeing her young lover standing in her bedroom. Was he sent down to be a part of this mission? She felt a bright smile burst forth on her face and her eyes stretch wide with surprise.

Khobran didn’t seem to return her joy. He simply shrugged his shoulders.

“I just got here. The captain sent me down because Scotty needed the help, so I was told.” His voice was nonchalant and light in its tone.

“So, you’re part of this mission?”

He smiled and nodded. “It looks that way.”

Khobran leaned further onto the table, giving Rand a fuller view of his strong muscular physique filling out and molding his mission jumpsuit. His presence in her room made Rand giddily hopeful; after all, him being in her room, near the foot of her bed, no less, must mean that everything was square with them again!

Khobran’s eyes traveled over the length of Rand’s scantly-shrouded body. There was the faintest hint of a smile that grew slowly until it curved jauntily, at the upper corner of his full lips.

Oh, shit yes!

Rand went to Khobran and threw her arms around his neck with abandon, latching herself onto him.

“God, I’m sorry! So sorry! I can’t seem to control my stupid, stupid insecurities, but that’s all they were! You gotta believe me! Racism had nothing to do with it! You know me! I can be such an asshole sometimes! Can you forgive me? Can we make us right again?”

Her words fell out of her mouth in a tumble while she pressed herself along the musculature of Khobran’s sturdy, large frame like a woman holding on for her life. She wanted to be enfolded in his strong protective arms, but Khobran didn’t return her embrace, but kept them braced on the edge of the table.

“I wanted to make sure that we’re strong, that our relationship was good!”

When Rand apology didn’t get any acknowledgement she looked up, worried, at Khobran, searching into those eyes she loved so much, to try to find whether there was any forgiveness in them. 

There was no vulnerability in those eyes or that face, but a cockiness that rather caught her off guard, though it wasn’t exactly a turn-off. 

Khobran leaned his head close enough so that the tip of his nose touched hers. “If you really want to apologize to me, the best way you can do that is to blow me off,” he said with a deep richness glided off his tongue.

Rand could feel her body become tingly, charged, and sensitive as the two of them held one another with their eyes. Khobran’s nimble fingers wrapped themselves around the meeting corners of Rand’s towel and deftly tugged them apart, unraveling the towel open so that it fell to her feet, revealing her nakedness.

Khobran swept his hands down her shoulders, made a detour to her firm breasts and squeezed them firmly, causing a gasp to escape Rand’s throat, before they traveled down her ribcage and then finally to her tiny waist, enclosed them there. He pulled her very close to him and kissed her. His lips pressed down on hers as her tongue made its way up his mouth, pushing and probing inside.

Rand’s body surged with heat as she reached with both arms to pull at the fabric of Khobran’s crewneck. She stretched, yanked and pulled at it, peeling the jumpsuit down frantically, kissing at every exposed inch of his emerald skin while the fabric was pulled lower and lower with trembling, slender hands. Her lips kissed, the tongue explored, her teeth pinched.

“Oh, Khobran! I missed you! I missed this!” Her voice was gravelly, heightened in her excitement, her blissful loss of control. She could feel his taunt abdominal muscles curl and flatten underneath her frisky, wanting mouth.

“That’s right! Squat down just like that! Part those incredible thighs while you take me in your mouth!” Khobran’s voice was horse with his own excitement as he hastily unwrapped the towel from Rand’s long wet hair, freeing the strands to fall and stick down her back.

She continued to peel past the narrow waist, the smooth pelvis, the thick narrow hips, until it was unveiled to her between powerful meeting inner thighs, fully erect, engorged, upswept. The wetness between her legs started to build and spread, petaling outward as she ran her hand along his buoyant testicles and cupped them in her palm, squeezing them firmly. She ran her other hand along the length of his shaft until she reached the foreskin and unrolled its sides, tugging at it. Khobran’s gasp was deep and throaty, his strong hands gathering and twisting her hair up in his fingers, like a rope.

Glorying in the strength of his pull, Rand licked hungrily along the shaft of his manhood, the salt of his Orion skin hitting the pliable wall of her palete while the scent of his musk entered her nostrils, the heady combination overtaking her in an intoxicating carnal brew.

She moaned as she continues to snake her tongue towards his tip, her hands manipulating his penis at the foreskin, the testicles. When her mouth reached their destination, Rand opened her mouth wide and engulfed his largeness, or some of him. Her mouth was wide but certainly not wide enough to take in all of him. What she was able to take in, she sucked greedily, her head thumping back and forth while her hand encircled itself around the shaft. 

Khobran’s hips thrusted, bucked; his hands pulling at Rand’s hair harder while her other hand cupped and pushed at his balls.

“Get up, Janice! I want to fuck you, now,” he growled.

She took one last lingering suck before she released him, and hoisted herself up from her squatting position. Khobran picked Rand up by her waist and brought her to the table, sitting her down so that she faced him. She grabbed the rim of the table and held on while Khobran stood in front of her, his jumpsuit down to his knees, his magnificent body displayed.

Looking straight into her eyes, he brought his hands between her thighs and parted them, pushing one leg up and gently against it. Rand’s hands gripped at the table’s edge, her body flushed while she felt the walls of her vagina become sensitive. Her body was his for the taking.

Their eyes were locked, they breathed as one unit as Khobran pushed himself into her, filling her up completely, his hand pushing her raised thigh harder, causing a delicious friction while she contracted around him tightly. He brought her leg over his shoulder and placed his hands in her hips. Her leg pushed into his upper back while she met his powerful thrusts.

“Khobran?!...”

Rand wobbled and fell, rolling off the side of the table and landing hard on her side against the floor, the force of the landing knocking a howl of pain out of her throat. She scrambled to sit up and looked around, disoriented.

“Khobran,” she called out in a small, frightened voice.

He wasn’t there.

Where did he go?

She turned to see if she could spot Khobran’s jumpsuit anywhere on the floor, if he’d left it there under the table in a heap.

No. The jumpsuit wasn’t there, either.

Tears welled up in her eyes, and she bit her lower lip in a childish attempt at fighting them back.

She was alone. 

Again. 

Khobran was never here.

There was a sudden chill in the air that swooped around Rand’s naked body, grazing her skin with a touch of ice that hung within the silence of these lonely walls. 

Her lips trembling, Rand pushed herself off the floor and ran to her bed, scrambling under the covers and pulling them around her, too afraid to untie herself from the fetal knot that she’d position herself in.

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter V  
Part 4

It was just like that other night, after the first incident. 

The sharp, vivid, white and amber light of Tijus’ moon projected from drawn window blinds, rolling throughout the darkness of the bedroom.

And just like that other night, Rand lied in bed, watching the light show above her head rise and fall in front and behind her, like a wheel. 

And like that other night, Rand was too damned spooked to sleep.

If only the moon patterns were sheep, she thought with weary dread. 

She could do nothing but recall the events of the past evening, when Khobran—or something passing for Khobran—came by for a creepy little visit.

Had he been a mirage?

After all, this was a desert planet. 

But from what she knew of mirages they were inverted reflections of light from above to create an image below, like when light rays from a blue sky passed down to create an image of water on ground level. So, that idea was ruled out in a big hurry. 

And of course, the most obvious rule of mirages were that they couldn’t be touched.

Or tasted.

Or smelled.

What the hell was that thing that invaded her mouth, her body, her emotions? 

Oh, Mother of God.

Rand, like that other night, tossed and turned in her bed under a blanket that felt like a smothering, crushing sheet of steel mesh. So, she kicked the covers furiously away from her, jumped out of bed and started to pace her room, back and forth. Her naked body covered in a sheet of sweat as she struggled to breath within the confines of the stale and leaden air of her room, her long hair sticking to her back, her shoulders, the tip of her buttocks. The epidermal hair from her skin rose and curdled under the dead, humming, unnatural cool of the air. She was suffocating. She wanted to bound, to escape! 

Shit! I can’t do this anymore!

Rand frantically reached out for her robe, slung over the chair in the upper corner of her room, snatched it in a whip, flung it over and onto her body, tied the belt around her waist, shakily opened the door, and ran out of the room without closing the door behind her.

The fresh air hit Rand as soon as she entered the hallway, like a rejuvenating tonic to her body. The sweat that sopped over her skin started to dissipate, her lungs began to open up, and her goose bumps receded back into her calming flesh. She was feeling much better, and there were only two more things that would put her completely at ease—company(even Nurse Rose’s) and those incredible almond ball snack morsels that were stored in the kitchen cupboards. 

Comfort food, she thought. Indeed, those almond balls were the only good food staple offered on the Enterprise!

Comfort was something that was definitely called for in this situation, that was for goddamn sure.

Apparently, Rand wasn’t the only one in need of a late night comfort snack. When she had entered the kitchen, she saw Begay standing by the serving window while Scotty rummaged through boxes on the other side, the two men looking both pensive and angry.

“We haven’t been on this planet that long for the supply to run that low,” said Begay.

“What do you mean? What’s going on?” asked Rand, puzzled.

Scotty walked out from behind the serving window, carrying a large crate. When he reached the long, white counter in front of the window, he slammed the crate down.

“Luu-lu-loook,” he said exasperated.

Rand walked over and looked into the crate. She could see that the almond balls she’d been craving for were already halfway finished.

“Aaaeeh cu-cu-caannt im-imm-immmagginnn…”

“Who the hell’s been eating all this,” asked Rand, purposely cutting off Scotty. She felt terrible  
about it, but listening to Scotty’s deteriorating speech was simply too much for her impatient ears to bear. 

During this time, Dr. Begay had gone behind the serving window and returned, retrieving two more crates of food. He opened them both and looked inside the contents. He shook his head and threw his hands up in the air.

“ Apparently, the almond balls aren’t the only food items disappearing. Someone’s taking all the snacks,” said Begay, incredulous. 

Rand looked at the half-full crates of food and then looked around the kitchen. Spock wasn’t here, but he didn’t exactly strike her as a late-night snacker. Riley snacked, but who could credit him for this large an appetite? Rand suddenly shook her head and chuckled to herself while Begay and Scotty looked at her quizzically.

“Who do you think would eat all of the snacks here, guys? Think of the one person whose been stuffing their face ever since we’ve landed on this godforsaken planet. Take a guess!”

The two men looked at each other, clearly at a loss to who it was that Rand was referring to.

“Oh, come on you two! You haven’t seen Hyacinth vacuuming food like it was going out of style? Haven’t you noticed her at mealtimes, how she eats?”

Blank stares were followed by slow, hesitant head shaking. 

“Seriously?” 

Was she the only one who noticed Nurse Rose’s increasingly grotesque appetite, or was that a trick of the mind like Khobran’s appearance earlier? Was she going crazy? Rand didn’t much like that prospect at all. The two men stared at Rand, and Rand stared back at them. 

A loud, heavy thump, followed by a equally heavy drag, came from the dining area, making Rand jump.

“What’s that?” she asked.

Begay and Scotty looked at each other again. 

“You two didn’t hear that?”

Blank stares and silence.

“What’s the matter with you two?!” 

No answer from either one of them.

Cursing under her breath, Rand stormed out of the kitchen and into the dining room where she saw Riley turning the long dining room table over on it’s side. Rand brought both hands over her eyes and shook her head in a fit of distress.

“Please tell me this isn’t happening,” she said to herself hopelessly.

She rubbed her eyes. She suddenly felt so tired, or was it despair that was taking its hold on her. 

Whatever.

When she removed her hands from her eyes she was immediately jolted by Riley’s worsening skin condition; flaring red pustules and angry whiteheads ripped through his skin like an army of termites, leaving grooves and pits in their vicious wake.

Before she could say anything, Riley raised his hand to silence her.

“I’m not listening to you, Janice, so forget about it! You’re not ruining my hard work this time! You don’t understand! I’m gonna…”

“ I know, your gonna make Mr.Russo your bitch! Yeah, yeah! Oh, man! What did they used to call this kind of thing, a re-run?”

She couldn’t believe this. Between Riley, the disappearing food and the blanked-out faces of Begay and Scotty—oh, don’t forget the phantom Khobran—Rand felt like she was in the middle of a lucid nightmare.

“Wait a minute, Riley! Is that gym equipment I’m seeing? Where’d you get it?” 

An aerobic step-up, a hurdle, and a small trampoline were wedged between all of the furnishings lined up from the dining room interior to the hallway, creating a haphazard row of clunking madness.

“The equipment closet in the meeting room,” Riley said, irritated.

“But there is no closet in the meeting room,” said Rand.

“Yes, there is! Now will you kindly get out of my fucking way?!”

Riley shoed Rand away and placed himself in front of the reclined dining room table. He surveyed what was in front of him, leaning sideways, checking that everything was where it should be. Then, bending down from the waist and positioning his legs, Riley focused on his obstacle course and began to count aloud.

“One…two…three…go-go-go-go-go-Go- GO!!” he yelled, balancing on the edge of the reclining dining room table like a trapeze artist, crawling under a bench chair, and bouncing off the small trampoline. 

Rand stood there, speechless, as Riley flew into the air with his legs leading, his head just missing the rim of the hallway door. Riley screamed, arms waving madly about him when he landed on the other side of the door and out into the hall in a stupefying crash landing.

“Riley!” 

Rand sprinted for the hallway door, squeezing through the furniture and gym equipment in order to reach Riley, who was sprawled on the floor at the tail end of his makeshift course.

“Hey, Riley! Can you hear me? Are you all right?”

She kneeled down next to him and grabbed his shoulders, pulling him towards her. Riley cursed under his breath and furiously shook himself away from her. 

“Get off of me! Don’t you have somewhere to go or something?!”

“I wish I did have somewhere to go! As long as it was off this fucking funhouse planet! What the hell’s the matter with you, Kevin?! What’s the matter with the whole goddamn landing party?!” 

Rand looked down at the spot where Riley had fallen, and noticed that her beloved pink and lilac yoga mat was lying right under him. She was without a doubt, quite miffed.

“That’s my yoga mat! Were you sneaking in my room, you little shit?!”

Riley’s eyes went to the stolen mat in a protective manner before he looked straight into Rand’s eyes and spread his body protectively, like a squid, over it.

“I need it,” he said quietly through clenched teeth.

“You don’t need shit,” Rand said with equally quiet fervor. “I want my damn mat. No one said you could take it, least of all me.”

She laced her fingers around the edge of the mat and tightened her grip on it. “I’m taking this back now, so be prepared to hurl on your ass when I pull it out from under you.”

“Janice! I need this for my obstacle course!”

“Fuck your obstacle course,” bellowed Rand.

With a full sweeping yank she violently pulled her mat out from under a yelling Riley, sending him off into a sloppy, buffoonish, somersault. When Riley finally landed, it was with a sputtering thump, right at the feet of Mr. Spock, who stood like a prison guard with his feet wide apart. 

Rand froze, her eyes widening while she held her breath. Spock slowly and mechanically lowered his head to Riley, who was looking up at him with an hang-dog face from his tangled position on the floor. 

When Spock looked up again at Rand, she reflexively held the mat up against her face and kept it there until she heard his footsteps fading back into the labyrinth maze of the hall. She felt cold, exposed, and she shuddered. She couldn’t help herself; she needed to feel sheltered somehow. Because as long as she lived and breathed, Rand would never forget the quiet contempt that gave expression in Spock’s face.

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter V  
Part 5

Rand woke up on the hallway floor in a crushing fugue state. Her head was so heavy on her neck it wobbled, and the tightness around her eyes and temples pierced through her like shards of flint rock twisting through her membranes. 

She struggled mightily, pushing herself up from her stomach with weak arms until she landed heavily on her bottom, straddling her elbows on her knees while her head hung between them. Rand was surprised by how winded, how out of breath she was, how spent. Funny, because the air wasn’t thin at all, she thought.

After giving herself a few minutes she raised her head and looked around. The hallway was dead, stone quiet, and the amber hue of dawn seeped its way through the area, glazing the atmosphere in it’s floating, glittering clarity.

Rand was embarrassed, having woken up in the middle of the floor like a complete fool. The others were probably in bed, like normal people; except there wasn’t much normal that’s been happening on this mission. It was obvious that she never left the hallway, so she wasn’t about to ask herself how she ended up here. What got to her was that she couldn’t becoming sleepy, much less becoming so sleepy that she was unable to make it back to her room. Ironically, she had left her room because she was unable to sleep in the first place. 

Rand came to the conclusion right then that she didn’t fall asleep.

Something else must have happened. But what?

“Hey, something ‘s missing,” Rand thought and looked around the hallway from where she sat.

“Where the hell is Riley?” 

He was not in his former spot, up ahead in the hallway, like before, mangled under the frightful gaze of Mr. Spock. Where do he go? 

Rand was feeling a little stronger now, so she hoisted herself up with great care onto her feet and slowly stood up.

“There. That wasn’t so bed, was it, Janice?” she thought.

She turned around and walked the length of the obstacle course, from the hallway to the dining room, knowing that’s where she’d most likely find Riley.

And find him she did, wedged between a love couch and a small shelf, asleep on his side, wrapped in her pink and lilac yoga mat. 

Rand’s mouth went agape and her eyes widened. Then, after thinking about it, she laughed to herself. She didn’t even want to begin to wonder when and how the opportunity presented itself for him to get her mat back. Later for that one! 

Rand heard some stirrings behind her, like soft shuffles of people turning over in their sleep, so she turned towards the kitchen, where she’d left Scotty and Dr. Begay, and headed there, finding the two men sprawled on the floor by the white counter, covered with the spilled contents of individually wrapped snack foods from the upturned crates they were fishing through earlier.

“I don’t understand this! I don’t get any of this shit,” she fretted to herself.

Rand suddenly had the instinctive thought of checking on the others—the others being Spock and Nurse Rose, to see if they were all right. She walked down the corridor to Nurse Rose’s room and opened the door. Sure enough, Rose was there, in bed, her eyes closed, looking like she was asleep, though Rand wasn’t sure whether it was sleep or something else that hit the crewmembers.

The soft amber dawn bathed Rose’s quarters, as her blinds were up and tucked away from the window to give one an unobstructed view of the early morning stillness of the desert landscape. Rose’s face was softened by the light, Rand noted to herself. She looked peaceful, almost angelic.

“Yup,” Rand thought. “A portable little lamp attached to her neck would do wonders for her.” 

She chuckled at her admitted cattiness and left it at that.

Then, Rand noticed something that made her head jerk back. Was she seeing what she thought she was seeing? 

In the far corner of Rose’s quarters were containers—canvas sacks, knapsacks, specimen boxes and tool kits, filled to brimming, with pre-packaged snack foods! 

So, that’s where they all went! 

Jesus.

It was then that she recalled telling Scotty and Begay about her instincts on Nurse Rose possibly stealing the snacks.

Dead on, Janice O Girl!

She walked over to the corner where the boxes were and looked inside to access the damage, to see just how much food Ms. Bottomless Pit ate. She was pleasantly surprised and absolutely relieved to see that there was still more than enough snack food to last this mission, and still enough food for the whole damn landing party.

Rand cut a glance at Rose, sprawled in the covers of her bed, and snorted in disgust. “Rose’s appetite wasn’t even a hearty one, it was grotesque and pitiful,” she thought. 

Rand took both a knapsack and a canvas bag full of food and slung them over her shoulders, careful not to let any of the contents spill over. Then, she walked out of Rose’s quarters and headed back to the kitchen, where she dropped the heavy bags onto the counter. 

She had to make three more trips to Rose’s room in order to retrieve every snack food bundle taken, before she was able to put them all back in the cabinets behind the serving window.

“Uuuhhh…”

Rand heard the groan right outside the serving window. After closing the last of the cabinets she left the pantry and returned to the counter out front, where she saw Dr. Begay wobbling on his hands and knees, while Scotty lied next to him moving his head from side to side groggily, his eyes open but droopy.

“Hey, are you guys all right?” she asked.

She came to Begay’s assistance, holding him by his shoulders and guiding him to sit on his buttocks.

“Easy now, don’t push it. I was just here myself, so I know what you’re experiencing.”

Begay breathed quite heavily once he was sitting up, as if the simple act of doing so had spent him greatly.

“Jesus Christ. Did I fall asleep on the kitchen floor? I can’t even remember being sleepy.”

He placed both hands on his head and grimaced, like he was in pain.

“Head feel like a sack of pebbles?”

“God, yeah!”

“Yep, just like me earlier. You’ll just have to wait for it to pass.”

“Wonderful,” Begay deadpanned.

Rand chuckled and patted Begay’s shoulder reassuringly. 

“I’m going to go and check on Scotty,” she said.

“Wuh-wuh-wuh-wherres th-th-thu bloody f-f-fuh-fooood?!”

Scotty was standing by the counter, frantically searching for the boxes of food that he and Begay were searching through earlier. Rand couldn’t believe that this was the same man who was lying on the floor barely conscious just a few minutes ago. 

Exactly when did he get up?! 

“Scotty, you can calm down. All the food’s back in the cabinets, and I mean all of it. All of it was retrieved, all found.”

Scotty looked at Rand, his eyes wide, before he dodged to the pantry without saying anything else. Rand could hear the doors to the cabinets open, the shuffling of boxes, and the rustling of cellophane being rummaged through.

“B-b-b-bluh-bluh-bloodyyy h-h-helll! Y-y-yuh-yuhr r-r-r-…”

“Where did you find the food, Janice?”

Rand turned to Begay and gave him a self-satisfied smirk.

“Take a wild guess,” she said.

Dr. Begay shook his head, drawing his lips in a frown.

“Hyacinth’s room.”

Begay jerked his head back and gave Rand an incredulous look.

“Why the hell was she hoarding food in her room like that?”

Rand sighed. She was sure as shit not going to run around that tree again! 

“What the hell is that? Is someone moving furniture around?” asked Begay.

Rand groaned inconsolably. God, not again. Rand pushed herself off from the floor and went into the dining area, where she saw a newly charged up Riley methodically rebuilding his obstacle course, holding his palms up in front of his face like a filmmaker looking for that perfect shot.

“Riley!” 

He ignored her as he engrosses himself in his dubious work. 

Then…

“Give me back my goddamn food, you stuttering ass!”

Rand would recognize Rose’s voice anywhere, but the high-pitched screeching coming from her was alarming. Rand left Riley to his own shaky devices and ran back into the kitchen area, where she witnessed Begay wedged between Scotty and Rose. There was an open crate of snack food spilling onto the floor right by their feet.

“What’s going on now?!” yelled Rand.

She wanted to pull her own hair out, this was getting to be too damn much. All this insanity! 

“It’s my fuckin’ food!!” bellowed Rose.

Rand took Rose by her collar and yanked her away from both Begay and Scotty. 

“It’s your food, my ass! What the hell were you doing hoarding the snack foods in your room anyway, for fuck’s sake?!” 

Rand had just about had it with this woman. With everyone. Even Dr. Begay, with his earlier irritatingly blank-faced cluelessness.

“It’s my food! MY FOOOOOOOOD!”

Rose yelled in Rand’s face, the spittle spraying against her nose, lips and chin, the stale order of almond, cheese and gut acid assaulting her nostrils.

“Hold it together, Janice,” she thought. “Restrain yourself from wrapping your hands around this buzzard’s fat neck!”

“Listen,” Rand said in a steady voice. “You don’t want to go toe to toe with me, ok? So I suggest you don’t cast your reeking breath in my face again. Ever.”

“Janice! What are you doing?! Let go of her collar!”

Dr. Begay reached out and angrily pulled Rand’s fingers off of Rose’s collar. There was something about the gesture, his hand tearing at hers, that felt like an intrusion, even a personal slight.

“Calm down, Matthias! You act like I was gonna take a hurl at her!”

“Well, it sure looked that way!”

“Maybe you need to look a little more carefully before you go around accusing people, Doctor!” 

Who the hell did he think he was?! The back of her neck grew hot. Rand suddenly had thought of hurting this man, really hurting him. Maybe even eviscerating him.

Like that kid back in that mining colony he used to be stationed at, she thought with grim glee.

“Look, I know what I saw!”

“And what exactly what is it that you saw?!”

Just then, Scotty ran away from Begay and headed towards the crate of food that was on the floor, gathering its fallen contents and placing them back in the container.

“No, my food! MY food!” yelled Rose.

She made as if she was heading for Scotty, but then stopped suddenly, covering her mouth with both hands while her face contorted and turned ruddy, and her body jerked and heaved like a small, helpless animal struggling against the blades of a meat grinder, her eyes popping wildly. 

Rand, Begay, and Scotty were frozen where they were, watching Rose gag and then vomit up the sour, curdling, yellowish paste of partially digested snack food right there in the middle of the kitchen floor.

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter VI  
Part 1

“Jesus effin’ Christ, lady! Ease up on your eczema obsession already! God!” 

Rand threw her head back and groaned. She was in Dr. Ellis’ claustrophobic hole of an office, listening to yet another round of logs on the recorder, containing reams of nothing. 

Rand sat up and looked out the window, which was the only thing keeping her from going completely insane. She was wound-up tight after last night and early this morning, after all that crazy making with the rest of the crew. Nurse Rose throwing up at the end of it all really took the cake, but it was the only thing that snapped everyone back to reality, strangely enough. Dr. Begay even cleaned up the mess, him being a doctor and all. 

Rand brought her mind back to the present, and looked hard at the recorder, as if doing so would make her focus on her work, but Dr. Ellis sure wasn’t making it any easier. Her once minute detailed descriptions on her digs and findings were being interrupted by complaints about her eczema! It was quite apparent that Dr. Ellis’ skin condition was worsening, as she obsessed over her flaring skin, her enlarged rashes and deepening scars. 

The voice of the archeologist, once monotone enough to give a hypnotherapist a run for their money, was now increasingly high-pitched, pained, almost maniacal as she went on about the discomfort from the itch and all-around tightness of the skin, and the insistent burning from the deep wounds. There was something in her voice that sounded a bit too much like Riley with all the agitated, delirious fussing. At one point, Rand even found herself scratching herself on her elbow, the nape of her neck, and under her chin. 

“Great! Now she has me scratching,” she lamented, throwing her arms up in the air.

Then, Dr. Ellis’ voice was suddenly stopped in mid-sentence. A low static hum was the only sound on the recorder now. Rand sat up, startled, and leaned into the recorder, pressing both the fast forward and play buttons alternately. Nothing. The rest of the recording was blank.

Turning off the recorder, she pressed the eject button to flip open the hatch. Rand gingerly removed the wafer and looked at the label. 

“Shit,” she thought.

This one was the last of the labeled wafers; the rest of them were blank, unused, which meant that all of this listening and painstaking focus for any clues, was at a dead end. 

Disgusted, Rand replaced the wafer into the pouch and closed the recorder hatch shut. She pushed back her chair, defeated. Now what? It seemed to her that there was only one thing left to do. Rand got up from the chair and pushed it back under the desk, took the pouch, then left the office, heading for Mr. Spock’s quarters. Damn her wariness about the guy! She’d make him take a listen to these. Maybe he’d be able to find something she overlooked, though she doubted it. 

When she reached Mr. Spock’s door she knocked, called his name, then waited. After not getting an answer, Rand decided to bite the bullet to take a peak inside the room. So, she took a deep breath to steady herself, and slowly, as quietly as possible, opened Spock’s door. She gingerly leaned her head inside and looked around, seeing only his bed, his makeshift meditation corner by the window, and neatly set-up work desk with all his instruments perfectly lined in a row. His room was unoccupied.

“Might be at the meeting room,” she thought.

Gently, she closed the door behind her and then headed for the meeting place, where the rest of the landing party, including Spock, had already gathered for a meeting. Rand was stunned as she stood by the door, watching Spock standing with arms crossed, legs apart, neck jutted forward and eyes narrowed at the crewmembers who were surrounding him now. For one thing, she never received word that any meeting was taking place at all. 

“Was anyone going to let me know about this,” she thought, feeling annoyed that she somehow wasn’t included in this little gathering.

The other thing that bothered Rand greatly was Mr. Spock himself; the way he looked, stood. The expression on his face was hostile, almost feral with his narrow eyes and clenched jaw, his cheekbones taunt like steel wire against his pale, greenish-tinged skin. If his body language wasn’t uncharacteristic of Spock, she didn’t know what was.

Rand moved in to join her fellow crewmen, who all looked at Spock with watchful, deliberate gazes, appearing purposeful, yet guarded. Looking a bit bloated, Nurse Rose was the first to speak, her voice clear but hesitant.

“With all due respect to you, sir, I don’t think this mission’s been very successful. Nothing’s been found of the archeologists at all. I mean, don’t you think we would have found something by now, sir?”

Rose finished her sentence by trailing off at the end, and then looking around at the others sheepishly, as if for validation that the others had her back. Murmurs of agreement from the others confirmed that she did. 

“I agree, Mr. Spock! This mission needed to be aborted since yesterday,” said Riley.

More murmurs of agreement. Rand stepped forward, opening up the pouch and removing the logs for the Vulcan to see, fanning them out in her hand.

“I have to side with everyone else, sir. I’ve just finished listening to Dr. Ellis’ logs, and there was nothing of significance that might lead us to any clues on the team’s disappearance or whereabouts. Most of them were standard findings and happenings on the expedition, but then they degenerate into obsessive rants over her developing childhood eczema. After that, the recording ends abruptly. There is nothing else. The rest of the tapes were never used, sir.”

She extended her hand out to Spock, offering the recordings to him for his own ears. Spock didn’t take the wafers from her, but stood there, standing center to the others like Captain Bligh.

“Yeoman Rand, clues can often be found in places where they are the least obvious. May I suggest that perhaps you did not listen closely enough to the logs in the first place,” he said in a clipped, patronizing tone. Rand felt the back of her neck grow hot. She was angry now. Whatever fear she had towards Spock dissipated behind her bubbling rage. 

“Oh, and I suppose that if I had Vulcan blood running through my veins I’d have been able to pick up on those hidden clues. Am I right?” 

She heard her voice; she was barely able to keep it on an even keel, she was so livid.

“How dare you question my professional judgment and abilities,” she thought.

“With all due respect, Mr. Spock, that’s a bit of a cop-out. If Janice says that there was nothing helpful on the tapes, then I’m sure that she’s basing that on strong professional analytical skills and integrity,” said Dr. Begay. “Now, I believe that we should contact the captain, tell him that this mission was unsuccessful and wrap things up here.”

Everyone murmured in the affirmative, while Spock seethed. He looked at Dr. Begay, his eyes focused, antagonistic, aimed like two weapons seeking a vulnerable area, where the most damage could be wreaked.

“There is a fact that clearly must be established here. I am the leader of this search party, and not you, doctor. May I offer to suggest that you keep that embedded in your human mind, round-ears.” 

“What?! What did you call me?! Are you out of your mind?! Are you?!”

Scotty reached out and grabbed Begay by his arm, pulling him back while Riley stood strategically in front of him for restraint. Rand was shocked, and at first couldn’t find her voice to address the chaos happening in front of her.

“Now, hold on Mr. Spock,” she said, raising her palms up to the first officer. “There’s no need for that! We’re not trying to go over your authority, or we wouldn’t have come to you with our concerns…”

“Well, if you ask me, we need to go over his authority now! This is crazy, and I’m for contacting the captain, pronto!” said Riley looking squarely at the Vulcan while restraining Begay. 

Spock stood there, shaking his head slowly with the faintest smirk on his lips.

“For your information, Mr. Riley, I spoke to the captain just a few moments before this impromptu meeting, and he specifically told me that we were not to leave this planet until we found the missing party. Those were his specific orders.” 

“Well, I’d sure feel a whole lot better if I heard those orders straight from the source,” said Rand.

“If you are in doubt about Starfleet Command’s orders, then you are invited to contact the captain himself.”

And with that, Spock uncrossed his arms, walked over to Dr. Begay for one last, lingering look, and then left the meeting room. The rest of the landing party followed the science officer with their eyes until he was out of sight, and hopefully out of earshot.

“Round-ears?!” Did you hear him call me that?!”

“Honestly Mathias, I think that little dig was aimed at all of us. Spock’s the only one with pointed ears around here. Don’t take it personally,” said Riley.

He and Scotty released Begay from the restraints; and Begay, though still angry, lowered his head and slumped his shoulders, reassuring everyone that his need for confrontation had lessened. 

“Look, Mr. Spock said we could call the captain for conformation on our orders. Let’s just do this and be done with it!”

Rand reached for her communicator and pulled it out of its holster. She flipped open its hatch and spoke into its receiver.

“Yeoman Rand to Enterprise, do you copy?” 

Static.

She adjusted the modules on the communicator, but the noise only got louder.

“Rand to Enterprise, do you read?”

The static grew thick, invasive, building up until it was almost deafening, then…

“What happened? It just went dead! Is my communicator broken or something?”  
“Everyone should try their communicators,” said Riley.

“Right behind you,” said Begay.

Everyone reached for their communicators and attempted to make contact with the Enterprise, even Scotty, who used Morse Code to reach the ship.

Nothing.

The crewmen passed glances at each other, apprehension and confusion marking their pale faces, their shadowy eyes.

“I don’t understand! If Mr. Spock spoke to the captain just a few minutes ago, why can’t we reach him?” asked Rand.

Dr. Begay shook his head.

“Let’s give it another try,” he said.

They did so. 

And still…

Nothing.

“How in the hell did Spock make contact? You think maybe the communicators stopped working a few minutes after his own contact with the captain?” pressed Rand.

“You think he was telling the truth?” offered Riley.

More glances among the circle of crewmen. Dr. Begay let out a long frustrated breath and replaced his communicator.

“There’s only one way to find out. We have to ask him what’s going on,” he said.

Finding nerves in numbers, they all headed to Mr. Spock’s quarters. Dr. Begay led the pack, with Rand close behind him. They reached the quarters of Mr. Spock, his door closed, like before.

Begay took the initiative and called the first officer.

“Mr. Spock! Mr. Spock, we’d like to speak with you please!”

There was no answer. 

“Mr. Spock!”  
The doctor reached for the door and tried to push it open, but it wouldn’t bulge.

“What the…there’s no locks on any of the doors! Why doesn’t this door open?” he asked.

Rand threw her head back and laughed rather mirthlessly.

“What’s so damn funny, Janice? We have to get to the bottom of all this!” said Riley, clearly impatient with her sudden burst of misplaced humor.

“Well, I sure as shit don’t think Spock’s going to let us get to the bottom of anything! He’s bolted the door from the inside, obviously! He will not answer to us! Honestly, I doubt that he ever spoke to the captain!”

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter VI  
Part 2

“ I guess Hyacinth doesn’t have a taste for things sprouted from seeds and dirt,” said Rand, pulling out a bag of ready-made salad—or what passed for salad-- from one of the stasis carts.

Bacteria green paste flecked with spots of red, yellow and orange squeezed out of tubes was  
about as garden-fresh as one got on these off-ship missions. Rand and Riley were on lunch duty, and the tubed salads of dubious colors were always in abundance, as Rose found it fit to leave those untouched in favor of the more substantial, crunchy main courses. It was truly a testament to the power of texture on the tongue, because neither the main courses nor the salads had any taste to them, unless cardboard was to your liking. Out of all the food Rand had retrieved from Rose’s room, not one of them had fallen into the ‘leafy greens’ category. 

Riley laughed at the smug remark while he gathered the main lunch packets from the carts and counted them out.

“We’re running out,” he said. “If she continues with this hoarding food shit we’ll be slurping down that green stuff for all our meals!”

“Oh, no! We can’t let that happen! Where is she anyway? In her room hoarding more of our food?”

“No, she’s working in the medical room with Begay. It seems Scotty’s been getting these dizzying spells or something.” 

“Yeah, tell me about it. I’m been getting those myself. I can be walking down the hall, then it suddenly hits me. You’ve been getting any?”  
“Who, me? No,” Riley said, shaking his head.

“Ha! Why am I not surprised.”

Indeed, Riley was so full of energy she was amazed he was able to focus on his task, he was so wired.

“Look, I’m going to take this wonderful window of opportunity and see if Rose hoarded any more food in that pig cave of hers. Be right back.”

When Rand reached Rose’s room, she noticed neatly stacked boxes of main course containers wedged squarely in the crevice where the walls literally met in the back corner by the window. 

Rand couldn’t get over that sorry sight. Did Rose honestly think that packing the food so neatly would somehow make her hoard less noticeable? If she really wanted a more effective way to hide the stuff, why not simply shove the damn food down her throat! Maybe Rose would be doing everyone a favor if she choked on it! 

Rand walked over to the corner, gathered what she could of the tall pile, and carried them back to the kitchen. 

Riley laughed as she entered the kitchen with the last of the boxes a third trip later.

“Is that all of them?”

“Yeah, Thank God! Geez, when the hell does she find the time to steal all this stuff? Shit!”

“Who knows! Too bad there’s no locks on the cabinet doors.”

“Hey, they never had to worry about a Hyacinth Rose in their mist. If they did, there’d be locks on the cabinet and pantry doors for sure.”

Riley had found this last comment particularly amusing and fell into a whooping fit of guffaws, doubling over and clapping his hands wildly like a circus seal.

“Calm down, Kevin! It’s not that funny!” Rand watched Riley lose himself in his mirth, afraid he might gag on his saliva, he was laughing so hard. She could see that his acne was paired with pink gouged-out areas, spotted with fresh specks of blood.

“Have you seen Dr. Begay about your acne, Kevin? To be brutally honest, it’s not getting any better.”

Rand was very aware that she had blurted out the question without much thought, but she couldn’t help it. Riley stopped laughing suddenly and turned to Rand, clearly caught off guard.

“What? My what?”

Oh, come on Riley! 

“Your acne! Have you seen Dr. Begay about it? What might be causing it?”

Riley reached for a shiny, gorged whitehead and thoughtlessly rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. Revolted, Rand watched while blood surrounded and swelled around the white puss pocket. Riley shrugged his shoulders, his eyes wide and innocent. 

“It’s not so bad, is it?” he asked sheepishly.

Rand stood with her hands on her hips, feeling the muscles in her face forming into one of those expressions that said ‘you’re joking, right?’ She wanted to say something sarcastic so badly, but gave up on the idea.

“Never Mind,” she said, turning back to her lunch preparations.

“Hey guys! What’s shakin’?”

Rand and Riley were surprised to see Nurse Rose peeking through the server window.

“I thought you were in the medical room. How’s Scotty? And what are you doing here?”

Riley snickered at Rand’s line of impolite questioning. Rose, craning her neck to get a bird’s eye view of the two of them preparing the food, said: 

“Well, I was in the lab, but now I’m done. Scotty seems ok after Mathias gave him a stimulant shot, so I came by to see if I could help out with lunch duty.” She spoke like someone checking off things on her To-Do List.

Rand and Riley suddenly shot glances at each other. Lunch duty?

“Hyacinth, you’re not on lunch duty.”

Oh, I know. I just thought that I could help out here.”

“Really. So you could stay close to the bounty, I suppose,” sneered Riley.

“Excuse me?”

“I just came from your room and found boxes of lunch and dinner packets stacked up against the wall, lady!”

“Oh, I see! So you just waltz into other people’s rooms without their permission?!”

“Food was missing! And whenever food is missing, you’re usually the culprit. Mind you, this is food for the whole crew, and you hoard it all for yourself! Do you still think you have a right to privacy under those circumstances? Sorry, Toots! We really don’t need your help here!”

Rand slammed a few of the pre-packaged meals in front of Rose, in order to emphasize her point. 

“Easy, Janice,” yelped Rose.

Rand gave her a dirty look. “Don’t easy me, girl! We know what you’re doing with this charitable shit!”

“Hey, I got this one, Janice,” said Riley, intervening. “Can you set up for coffee?”

Rand calmed down. “Yeah, sure.”

The two of them purposely ignored Rose as they continued working their lunch duty. Riley carried out the prepared meals and placed them on trays, while Rand reached overhead to open the cupboard right over the sink. 

“Clank!”

Something had fallen out of the cupboard and onto the floor. Rand looked down to see what it was. 

The object was a plastic rod of some kind, black in color, with a rounded, tapered end and a grooved handle for easy gripping. It looked like one of those things used with blenders, to help push the food down to the blade for maximum efficiency. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands, running her fingers along its length. 

“Hey, Janice! Did you start the coffee yet?”

“Can you hold your horses, Kevin dear? You’ll all get your coffee! Don’t worry!”

Rand placed the instrument on the rim of the sink and reached up to get the coffee filter. 

“Gotta rinse this.”

She placed the ball of her hand under the single-knob faucet and pushed it up, bringing jolting images of Khobran pushing her thighs up and apart, thrusting himself inside her as he pressed her against the wall, their wet, hot naked bodies slamming violently together in orgasm.

It was the rushing sound of the water that brought her back to the present. She took a sharp, rasping breath and shot a look at Riley, who was behind the outside counter getting the trays and food together, ignoring Rose while she stood over him like a forlorn child being left out of a hide-and-seek game.

Rand placed her hands on her stomach and took slow, deliberate breaths to calm herself, but was suddenly aware of the glaring wetness between her legs, and the throbbing, aching clit that accompanied it.

Suddenly, Rand had an idea. “Hey, Hyacinth? Can you come over here and make the coffee for me? Something’s just came up!”

She made sure that her voice was at its utmost sweetest.

Rose and Riley looked at each other in amazement before Riley turned in Rand’s direction.

“What? What happened? You’re not feeling well or something?”

Rand smiled. She liked that answer. 

“Yeah, that’s right! I think I’m getting dizzy again. Hyacinth, would you please , if you don’t mind. And you did say you wanted to help, right?”

Just get your fat ass over here and move it swiftly, sister!

Hesitant, Rose walked over to where Rand was.

“Well, here I am. At your service,” said Rose eagerly, scouting the area with her eyes.

Probably searching for more food to hoard.

“Oh, thank you so much! I really appreciate it.”

Rand smiled brightly, promptly took the black rod from the sink rim, and walked out.

“See you at lunch,” she called over her shoulder.

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter VI  
Part 3

It was like that teatime scene from Alice in Wonderland, but worse, because none of it was happening on the pages of a book. It all was happening live in front of her, and there was no rabbit hole she could hoist herself out of to escape this madness. 

Directly across from Rand, Nurse Rose shoveled food down her mouth without break, her free arm encircling her plate territorially. Riley, on the other side of the spectrum, didn’t touch a morsel of food, but talked incessantly, punctuating almost every pointless word with jabbing, grand gestures. He was a man unhinged, who even resorted to climbing onto the table when his gestures and pronouncements weren’t enough to get everyone’s attention.

At the head of the table was a remote Spock; hands steepled, his eyes rolled so far up into his head that only the whites were visible. Rand shuttered, feeling a chill sweep across her shoulders.

“Let’s hope this is as bad as he gets today,” she thought.

On the other end of the table, directly opposite of Spock, was a frazzled Scotty pulling at the bottom of Riley’s shirt in a vain attempt to keep him off the table. Poor Scotty looked pale, haggard, but then everyone did. They were like hollowed eyed ghosts of patients in an abandoned, decrepit, haunted asylum.

Dr. Begay sat next to Rand, his elbows on the table, his head cradled in trembling hands.

“Mathias, is everything OK?”

He had an agonized, knotted expression on his pallid face.

“Mathias, is everything all right?”

He began to take quick, raspy breaths. They were uneven, coarse; the breaths morphed into jarring gulps for air.

“Mathias, what’s wrong?”

Begay wrapped his arms around his stomach and gritted his teeth, grunting violently.

“Mathias! Talk to me!”

Rand reached out to Begay, but he fell away from her grasp and landed on the floor, his chair crashing audibly behind him. His body sputtered and jerked like a helpless fish taken out of its water habitat. He let out a piercing scream that flayed Rand’s nerves.

Fighting against the invading noise, she jumped off her own chair and positioned herself over the doctor.

“St-staples! Please! God, please!”

“Staples?! What the hell are you talking about?!”

“My guts!! My blessed guts!!”

“Your guts?!”  
“DAMN IT! CAN’T YOU SEE THEY’RE SPILLING OUT OF ME??!! GOD!! MAKE IT STOP!!!”

Rand looked around the surrounding area where Begay lay tossing around, then observed the spaces between his fingers and arms wrapped around his waist.

“Mathias?! There’s no blood anywhere to indicate you’ve been injured…”

“Get the fucking staples!!”

“Maybe if I could move your arms away…”

“Are you nuts?!?! They’ll spill out!!!”

Rand bit the bullet and prodded gingerly with her fingers under his tightly strapped arms. There was no gaping hole, no wetness, no injuries.

Nothing.

“Nurse Rose! I need help here!”

When Rose didn’t come, Rand became irritated.

“Nurse Rose!! Where are you?!!” 

Rand jumped up from where she was and surveyed the spectacle in front of her; Riley was being carried off the table by Scotty, Rose was shoving food in her mouth to the point of self-affixation, and Spock was still absorbed in whatever netherworld held him captive--away from the humans.

“Earth to assholes!” Rand bellowed, not giving a Good God Damn how Spock would react.

“I have an emergency over here! Dr.Begay is having an attack of some kind! He needs restraining! If it’s not too much trouble, I need help here!”

As if on cue, Riley and Scotty immediately stopped what they were doing and ran to either side of Begay.

Rand watched hotly while Nurse Rose robotically reached for Riley’s abundant plate of food and dumped the contents onto her own plate. Beyond angry, she leaned across the table to where Rose sat, picked the plate up from under Rose, and tossed it over Rose’s head where it crashed on the floor.

“You might want to get a hypo needle for your doctor in between your face stuffing,” she said icily.

The two women were locked in eye -combat, frozen where they were, yet ready to strike, like cobras watching each other. They were poised like this for a small amount of time until the nurse finally relented, getting up from where she sat and walking away, her eyes still locked on Rand as she headed for the medical room.

Rand turned her attention to Spock. Her eyes level, she stood in front of him.

“Mr. Spock,” she said, pointing to a helpless Begay. “Our doctor needs assistance! Can you please help us restrain him at least! We could use your strength!”

Spock said nothing. He unsteepled his hands and rolled his eyes from behind his head, the brown of his irises reappearing and focusing on Rand with creepy precision. Rand clenched her jaw and tried her upmost not to flinch while the Vulcan sat quietly, looking at her with dispassion. Finally, he pushed himself away from the table, picked up his plate of food, and simply walked out of the dining area without saying anything, or looking back.

Chapter VI  
Part 4

“You what?!”

Rand couldn’t believe what she was hearing! She just about had it with Mr. Spock; he had walked out on her when she and the others needed his assistance during Dr. Begay’s bizarre attack, and now he had the unmitigated gall to call a meeting at an hour when everyone was winding down.

“Spock, why the hell are we running around this tree again?! I thought this was all settled! Why are we having another night search?! And further off the settlement grounds, to boot?! At least, if we’re going further out, we should wait ‘till morning—not that we’ll find anything—but what the hell?!”

“Is it not logical to go beyond the encampment if evidence fails to materialize within its confines?” 

“Mr. Spock, if we couldn’t find anything in these quadrants, then it’s safe to say we won’t find anything outside of them!”

“Yeoman, it is not up to you as to how this search is to be conducted. This mutinous behavior of yours is most disturbing…”

“Mutinous behavior?! It is being mutinous to point out that nothing’s been found to give us even a hint of the whereabouts of Dr. Ellis’ expedition party?! Why would you have us search the outskirts, at this hour I might add, when everything on this site is exactly how they left it? Tools, excavation, paperwork—everything in its place?! I can tell you right now they never left this encampment, they couldn’t have! That’s the only thing we can be sure of, even after you had us search this goddamn site twice, Mr. Spock! Twice! Nothing’s been found!”

Spock stood glaring at Rand, but she pressed on undeterred. 

“I gave you the logs, which had nothing more but a manic woman complaining about her eczema before the recording was cut off completely! All communication to the ship is gone—which you won’t address! I say that we should try to get back to the ship and declare this mission unsuccessful!”

Murmurs from the other crewmembers ran like a chorus behind her; Rand had become their voice, and by the pointed glare that was emanating from Spock, it was patently clear that he resented it.

When Spock spoke, every word was drawn out, every syllable stressed, his vocal pitch dangerously low.

“We are to prepare for this search. I would strongly advise that all of you retrieve your equipment. Now.”

“Rand is right! Why can’t we do this in the morning! We’re all very tired, Spock,” Riley whined.

Standing next to Riley was Dr. Begay, silent, solemn, still quite shaken from his psychotic episode from earlier this evening, but nodding in agreement with the others. Riley continued.

“It doesn’t make any sense! You’ve been acting like a slave driver, making us go over areas we’ve gone over before with no results! And now we have to search the outskirts now?! Captain Kirk would never treat us like this! That’s for damn sure!”

More murmurs of agreement. Mr. Spock’s jaw clenched, his nostrils flared like a predator smelling blood, and his eyes hardened for a moment before they returned to their familiar emotionless calm. When the first officer spoke again, he did so in a level tone while he scanned the faces of each individual officer, making it a point to meet their eyes.

“I’m afraid that this type of behavior is all too typical of terrans, who, as you’d say, ‘can’t make the cut when the going gets tough.’ “

He crossed his arms, his brows knitted. Spock’s voice was of a much lower pitch now; it carried a simmering rage he contained with enough deftness to be under wraps, but yet still audible.

“You will obey my orders, for that, I am certain. If any one of you see fit to go against me, then you will be looking at a possible court-marshal. That is your choice.”

His brow raised, Spock unfolded his arms and left the room. The rest of the landing party looked at each other, eyes wide, their bodies jittery.

“Can he do that?! Can he court-marshal us, even if we have legitimate questions about his command?!” asked Rand in a hushed panic.

“Look, I don’t know and I’m not willing to test Mr. Spock on this! Can we just do what he ‘commands’ of us and get it over with? Let’s just get this done,” said Dr. Begay, disgusted.

The crewmembers left their spots, exhausted and beaten, to get ready for the search. 

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter VI  
Part 5

Rand was not too tired to be livid. The landing party had just returned from a search conducted on the outskirts of the camp along the desert waste; a search that proved to be so futile it made Spock’s growing lack of professional judgment stunningly apparent, and all too embarrassing.

At least it was over for now, until the next time Spock would be seized by, and induced in, the throes of psychotic hubris.

The shower room resembled the Battery Park Tunnel, only a lot smaller, and without the curvature. Embedded in the tile, on either side, were rows of copper stump showerheads evenly positioned over small, rectangular dashboards. The tile was a mood mellowing soft ecru, an appropriate color for winding down under glorious jets of warm water and steam, especially after the shit day she had. 

Her flip flops made small hollow echoes as she walked over from the connecting locker room, and found a showerhead that was as far from the locker room door as possible for that much-needed sense of privacy. She manipulated the eye-level controls on the dashboard until the showerhead moved upward to accommodate her height. Pressing a few more controls made warm water shoot against her skin, enveloping her with its undulating vapors.

“Oh, God. I seriously needed this,” she thought.

Rand could feel her anger ebb away in the water, vapors and lilac body shampoo she massaged over her body. She sighed heavily and smiled, raising her face to the shower stream. Here she could forget about Spock’s mad night search, and her feelings about being stranded on Tijus and abandoned by the Enterprise. 

And from Khobran.

Rand turned briefly from her shower to see a somewhat discombobulated Nurse Rose stumble to the shower next to her.

Barely able to mumble a greeting, she hastily worked the dashboard until water came down and surrounded her. 

Rand grunted, and was about to turn away when something when something struck her. She pushed her wet, clinging hair away from her face and did a sweeping double take on Rose.

“Did you lose weight?”

Rose turned half-heartedly and cocked her ear towards Rand.

“Did I what?” she asked, listless and with slight irritation.

“You look like you’ve lost weight, around 20 pounds or better. I’m not kidding! I can’t imagine what your secret could be with all the food you’ve been wolfing down!”

Rose looked down at herself briefly. “Hey, I’m not complaining. At least I’m not as waiflike as you these days.”

Now, Rand looked down at her own body and rand her hand along her hip and ribcage. She looked malnourished, wasted away. The fullness of her hips were carved away, leaving indentations of slack, dry flesh. Her ribs were pronounced, like a canopy, over a stomach so caved in as to looked almost pitted. 

Rand fought the urge to cry at how hollowed out she was, but the one thing that horrified her more was that she had never taken notice of her deteriorating appearance. How the hell could she have missed all of this?! She had showered daily, unclothed daily, lotioned herself up.

What in the hell was going on?

Perhaps in response to Rand’s reaction, Rose shrugged and said simply: “Hey, you don’t look that bad. No worse than anyone else here.” 

There was an awkward silence between the two women. Rand swallowed hard, thankful that the water from the shower camouflaged the tears that threatened to fall.

“Thanks,” said Rand, flatly.

“Don’t mention it,” Rose returned with equal deadpan delivery.

More silence stretched between them, the echoes of the shower sprays hitting the tile floor becoming louder against the quiet of the room.

Finally, Rose spoke again. She hesitated, weighing her words very carefully.

“You know, in the beginning, Riley was being a bit of a jerk, complaining about the mission in those first meetings when there was nothing to complain about. But, well, it seems to me kinda weird, but it was like his complaining was, I don’t know, foretelling how badly the mission would go. 

“Foretelling? I don’t understand.”

“Well, yeah. In the beginning, he said that the mission was taking too long and that we needed to wrap things up, which wasn’t true then. Don’t you remember? But now, it’s coming to pass. It’s like he knew to complain before it happened! Isn’t it weird?”

Rand snorted. “Everything about this mission is weird. It’s all creeping me out! I even feel like I’m possessed at times, like I say and do things I’m not in control of. Hell, sometimes I can’t even stay focused on things I can normally do with my eyes closed.”

“Same here! One minute, I’m so all over the place sometimes in that medical lab that I end up wasting a lot of time, but then the next minute I can be just as focused as I would normally be. Mathias is the same way-totally focused on his job and then minutes later he’s either crying like a baby or kneeling over, screaming about his guts!” 

“I know what you’re talking about. When I was working in the kitchen with Riley he was so efficient and helpful, so unlike the nutcase obsessed with obstacle courses and that Russo guy. You were with us in the kitchen. You’ve seen him. Night and Day.” 

Rose looked at Rand quizzically, her eyebrows slightly raised.

“Speaking of the kitchen, what happened to you? Weren’t you on meal duty with Riley? Why did you leave like that? And why did you take that black thing with you?”

Rand wasn’t even going to dignify that one. She turned away from Rose to the shower dashboard, and altered the setting slightly for a warmer temperature. 

“Let’s just say I wasn’t focused on my duties like Riley was,” she said smugly.

Ssssswwweeeoooosshh!

Rand and Rose turned to each other, startled by the sound of a third showerhead being activated. 

Rand knew for a fact she’d alerted everyone that she would be taking a shower, which meant the shower room was off limits to the men until she was finished. Hyacinth was here taking a shower right next to her, accounted for. 

So, who in the hell was in here that wasn’t supposed to be?

Rand and Rose turned in the direction of where the sound was coming from and started to protest while they contorted their bodies, using their arms and legs in a vain attempt to cover their nakedness. They started to back up to a safe corner, out of sight from the view of this inconsiderate blockhead, but then they froze, their bodies straightening up slowly, unaware, like they were on autopilot. The two women went silent.

He was standing at the far end of the shower room, his tall powerful body naked as water shot down from the showerhead he stood under, plastering ringlets of blue-black hair to his forehead, which he pushed back and away with both hands, the movement emphasizing the bulge and cut of his biceps.

Rand couldn’t speak; she just stood there dumbly, watching him come closer, his eyes locked in on her like she was his target. His steps were slow, deliberate, while he made his way to each along his path. As he closed in, each showerhead would rise and settle to accommodate his height, the dashboards lighting up and fluttering just by him standing in their space; it was like something emanating from his body that acted like some kind of activating force. Each showerhead dutifully sent out streams of water that cascaded down his hair, his neck and shoulders, his inner thighs, making his emerald skin slick and gleaming. This went on for a while, until Khobran finally reached Rand and loomed over her, his long-lashed eyes narrowed and heavy-lidded, his lips parted slightly.

Rand knew that this thing standing in front of her wasn’t her lover, wasn’t Khobran, and yet he was physically like every inch of him, the violet glint in his eyes, his broad shoulders, even the hint of musk from his skin. She couldn’t help herself. She wanted him just the same, to surround him with her walls and legs. 

She reached up to touch him, caress him, her movement slow and thick like she was under water. Khobran inched closer and took her hand, placed it on his taunt belly and guided it down with a gentle urgency. Rand was drawn, lulled into the unreality of it all until another woman’s hand brushed clumsily along Khobran’s chest.

It was like Rand had been punched in the temple. Livid, she jerked her head back and turned to see Nurse Rose bring her hand to her mouth and run her tongue over her palm.

“What the…fuck are you doing?!...Are you out of…your ever-loving mind?!”

Rand could feel her body shake with rage. She knew that if she pushed Rose, gave her a good shove, that she might end up breaking her skull on the slippery wet tile, so she checked herself as best she could.

It wasn’t easy.

Rose cocked her head and let out a small, sharp breath. “Excuse me! What’s your problem?”

“What’s my problem?! I’ll break your freakin’ arm in two! You actually have the audacity to touch Khobran like that, and then lick your goddamn palm afterwards?! You must either be psychotic or an imbecile!”

Rose’s eyes widened, her face an expression of utter disbelief and patent dismissal.

“You’re crazy! Touching Khobran?! Last time I checked he didn’t look like a chocolate fountain—certainly not his color, God knows!”

“Seriously?! You’re trying to wriggle your way out of this…”

“Wiggle nothing! There was a chocolate fountain at this restaurant that my family used to go to all the time, Jesus!”

A chocolate fountain that she used to go to. Rand snorted and shook her head in disgust. Of course. What’s the one thing Rose obsessed over the whole time she’s been on this mission? 

Food.

Always the fucking food.

The two women looked over to where Khobran, or the chocolate fountain, had been.

They were alone now, the two of them.

Alone, standoffish, and seething.

Rand walked over to Rose and got in her face. “I guess we were both wrong, huh?”

She walked away from the nurse, went to the dashboard to tap on a mechanism that turned off the water, quietly collected her toiletries, and walked back over to Rose.

“For the record, I didn’t much care for that racist crack about Khobran’s skin color. Say something like that again, and you’ll be chewing on that fat tongue of yours.”

As a final warning, Rand bumped her shoulder violently against Rose’s, nearly toppling the poor woman over. When she reached the door, she looked over her shoulder to a quiet, humbled Rose standing under the shower with her mouth tightly drawn, and her shoulders hunched.

“No more chocolate to lick from the bowl, am I right,” she quipped.

Rand smiled slightly, nodded her head, and then walked out of the shower room.

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter VII  
Part 1

Rand was sick and tired of staring up at the ceiling. It had become a bad habit, almost like an addiction that consumed her, but she’d become afraid of falling asleep. She simply couldn’t understand, for the life of her, how otherwise astute and reasonable Starfleet personnel could be oblivious to their plight one moment, and then, the next moment, be so keenly aware of it.

Rand let out a long, ragged breath and ran her fingers through her hair, which was fanned out on the pillow. She knew that she couldn’t count herself entirely blameless, as she’s been almost completely swept away by all the hallucinations and apparitions like everyone else, but the extreme sexual nature of her experiences have kept her from confiding about them to anyone.

That scene in the shower room changed all that.

Something was going on that was distracting the landing party, keeping them dangerously absorbed, isolated to their own illusions, and from one another, while whatever it was ate away at what little faculties of reason they had left. 

Rand continued to gaze at the ceiling, at the wheel of light from Tijus’ moon projecting from the blinds. She thought back to Dr. Ellis’ logs, and how they degenerated into gibberish about her childhood eczema. Clearly, what was happening to this landing party had happened to the missing archeological team.

Why the hell didn’t she see this before? 

Rand chuckled.

Stupid question, when you consider what’s been going on, she thought.

Rand wondered if the physical deterioration of the crew was somehow connected to all this; the pale skin, ragged eyes and weight loss. 

Was all of this connected to the team’s disappearance? Because if it was, that meant Rand needed to reach Spock, to make him understand, before they became the subject of a search themselves.

She sprang upright in her bed, her lips drawn firmly, her back firm and rigid.

“I don’t give a shit,” she thought.

“I don’t give a shit about his nastiness, his standoffishness, his blocking the bedroom door! I’m talking to Spock, even if I have to force him to listen!”

She flung the bed sheets off her body, sprang from the mattress and hastened out her bedroom door, not even bothering to close it behind as she headed for the hall to Spock’s room.

“Hey, Janice!”

Rand turned. It was Dr. Begay, coming down from the other end of the hall, clad in his pajamas, slippers, and robe.

“You look like a woman running out of a burning building! Where are you going?”

“I need to talk to Spock.”

“You too?”

“Yeah. I can’t deal with his lack of action anymore.”

“Hey, I guess great minds think alike. You can’t see him like that, though.”

“Like what?”

“Are you kidding? You hardly have anything on.” 

Rand knew she’d rushed out of her room without her robe and slippers, and that her nightshirt only covered her from the top of her thighs.

“Oh, give me a break, Mat. I’m not naked.”

“A break, nothing. Put this on.”

He slipped off his robe and held it out in front of him. Rolling her eyes, Rand stepped in front of the robe, turned her back towards it, and put it on dutifully, tying the belt around her waist. When she was finished, she turned to Begay and, in jest, held up her arms for inspection.

“Am I presentable now?” she smirked.

“Almost. Put these on your feet.” 

Begay kicked his slippers off his feet, and pushed them, with his heels, towards her.

“Your slippers? Don’t be silly, Mat. What about you?”  
“You’d be surprised how thick my calluses are. Don’t worry about me. Put them on.”

“Oh, such a doctor,” Rand teased as she placed her feet in the slippers. 

“Okay, let’s go.”

“Finally.”

“Very funny.”

They started on their way hurriedly, asking each other about whether Spock would be receptive to their concerns. When they reached his door, Rand and Begay stood in front of it and simply looked at each other. It was like the one was waiting for the other to make the first move, to be the one to rap their knuckles on the door.

“OK. I’ll let him know we’re here,” said Begay finally, a slight crack in his voice.

“Don’t get too nervous, Mat. Chances are he won’t even answer,” Rand quipped.

“Then we’ll stand here for as long as it takes,” he said, his nerve gathering back.

He pounded on the door with the side of his fist, pushing aside any pretense of politeness. 

“Mr. Spock! Mr. Spock! Do you hear me? Are you in there?” 

“I can indeed hear you, Doctor, and I am indeed here, as I would be nowhere else at this hour.”

“Oh, my God! I didn’t except it to be this easy,” whispered Rand. “If this is a real window of opportunity opening up here, let’s jump on through, I say!”

Mr. Spock, I’m here with Yeoman Rand. We have some real concerns about this mission that we feel need addressing. May we come in?”

“By all means, if the matter is pressing.” 

Rand’s smile burst forth as Dr. Begay pushed pushed open the door to Spock’s room and followed him in. They found Mr. Spock in his long, black and gold trimmed robe, sitting erect in what appeared to be the lotus pose. He was situated in front of a small alter shrouded in a black cloth, with a small bowl sitting on top of it. A long crimson rug sat underneath both him and the alter.

“You must excuse me. My faculties of concentration have alluded me throughout most of this mission, so during the few occasions I am able to settle my thoughts, I as you would say, grab hold of the opportunity, if you will.”

Spock leaned forward, placed his hands a few inches in front of him and hoisted himself up slowly. There was fatigue etched in his face, a heaviness under his eyes that made him appear aged, frail. He was thinner and paler like the rest of the landing party, making the greenish undertone of his skin harsh, glaring, almost cadaverous. 

Spock moved to the edge of his bed and sat down heavily, his shoulders slumped. Rand and Begay walked over to Spock and stood over him, waiting.

“I must, in all honestly, say that my behavior has been less than fitting of a Starfleet officer, and that I am pleased that you are both here, so that you two may be the first that I apologize to.”

“Less than fitting is putting it mildly, but then Spock has always had a way of understating things,” thought Rand.

Still, she was moved by the gesture. And downright relieved.

Whether Spock was going to stay in his right mind was still in question, so Rand kept a guarded optimism, as it would be stupid not to.

“That’s actually why we’re here, Mr. Spock. Everyone’s been under some kind of influence that induces these strange behaviors. This grip has been so strong that it’s distracted us almost to the point of our sabotaging this mission, sir. And judging from Dr. Ellis’ logs and the erratic swing they took, I believe that our behavior on Tijus might be connected, in some way, to the disappearance of the expedition members.”

Spock’s brow cocked, his interest clearly peaked.

“I am listening, Yeoman.” 

“YOOOOOUUUUUUBAAASSSSTARD!!!”

The scream was drawn out, wild and throaty. Rand, Spock, and Begay turned to the door.

“What the hell…”

“It sounds like Rose!”

Spock was the first out the door as the three of them bounded down the hallway to the commotion in the meeting room.

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter VII  
Part 2

They could hear the mayhem coming from the meeting room before they even reached the place; Rose’s voice was shrill and grating against Scotty’s jumbling mess of halted, severed, sentences. 

Spock reached the meeting room before the others, but suddenly stopped abruptly by the door. He just stood there, appearing confused, puzzled, his hand gripping the frame of the door, as if some kind of fainting spell was trying to overtake him. Rand looked at Spock, mystified over Spock’s behavior, until impatience spurred her to step under his bracing arm and entered the room, with Begay following her. 

Scotty and Rose stood toe to toe, like bulls, screaming at each other in blaring, deafening pitches. Rose shoved Scotty in the chest hard enough to make him trip, stumble, and fall. Standing with her feet apart and her fists clenched, Rose raised her head defiantly, like a pack animal that humiliated her alpha leader. While Scotty was struggling to get up off the floor, Rose loomed over him like a schoolyard bully waiting to stomp him.

“P-p-p-pussy!” 

When Scotty finally got up, his eyes were ablaze. His lips twisted obscenely, barring teeth. He let out a ripping howl as he grabbed Rose by the collar and yanked her, making her head snap back violently. His other hand struck her in a back-handed slap that echoed in a nauseating, crackling sound, like bones shattering. 

“Scotty!” 

Rand leapt towards Rose, whose body was twisting in free fall after Scotty released her from his grip. Rose crashed to the floor, landing on her hip. Blood coated her lips, laced her teeth, and there was an angry red impression that ran from her cheek to her chin. 

Rand bent down over Rose and reached for her face, cradling it in her hands. Rose was crying, her eyes squeezed shut and smeared with the wetness of her tears, her mouth a grimaced red pit. 

“Hyacinth! Hyacinth!” 

Rand could hear the shakiness in her own voice and tried to control it, but the image of a wild-eyed, sneering Scotty backhanding Rose seared through her mind. Rose kept screaming, inconsolable, unreachable. Rand looked up and saw Begay struggling against an irate, crimson-faced Scotty who was reaching over Begay’s shoulder with an accusatory finger towards his victim.

“At least Begay has him under control,” she thought with some relief. 

Rand looked over at Spock, who was still standing by the door. He was rotating his head slowly, his shoulders hunched, his eyes strained. It was as if there was something in his head he couldn’t shake, like an invasive, insistent white noise. 

“Spock, are you all right?” Rand asked warily. 

It was hard for Rand to tell whether Spock was going to stay where he was, or leave his spot. But then, as if answering her, he stopped turning his head and straightened up, his eyes suddenly relaxed and focused, and started towards Rand when a bizarre contraption, long, bulky and multi-tentacled, slid in his path and under his feet, making him trip and tumble to the floor in a pummeling spill. 

There was dead silence. Everyone froze in their place.

Rand held her breath, taking a look at what it was that appeared out of nowhere to make Spock fall. 

It was a spiral plant-holder, made out of plastic but produced to resemble a tree, its branches shaped as bowls where potted plants could be placed, accented by dainty carvings of attentive little fairies hovering just underneath the pots. 

One of the plant holders had broken off and bounced down the floor, heading towards Rand. She followed it with her eyes numbly, forgetting all about Rose, who she was still holding. The clattering of the holder echoes through the quiet of the room until it came to an abrupt halt.

“WHAT DID YOU DO??!! I’M TRYING TO BUILD MY OBSTACLE COURSE HERE AND YOU BREAK ONE OF MY EQUIPMENT PIECES??!! WHY DON’T YOU WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING, GODDAMNIT!!!!” 

Riley appeared, seemingly, out of nowhere, standing over Spock and yelling at him, gesturing wildly, while Spock lay face down on the floor. 

Spock hoisted himself up slowly, tentatively, until he was sitting up. He looked at the detached plastic piece on the floor in front of him, and then at the bottom of his meditation robe and saw that the hem had been torn, its gold trim detached raggedly and dragging beneath his feet.

Spock looked up at Riley, who continued to yell, point and gesture. At first, his eyes were dead as he sat there on the floor. But then, something happened to them when he started to get up, his eyes came alive in a slow, rolling boil. 

“YYYYOOOUUU STUUUPID STUUUUPID……..What??!! WHOA!!!!

It happened quicker than an eye blink, or at least it seemed that way to Rand. Spock’s lip was turned downward in a contemptuous curl, mirroring Scotty’s when he had attacked Rose. His eyes narrowed on Riley like a falcon that finds its prey before tearing it apart for the feeding. With unnatural speed, Spock latched onto Riley by the back of his collar and lifted him up, making Riley hang like a ragdoll. Riley looked down to see the long, elegant fingers of the First Officer’s curling up one by one into a fist. 

The Lieutenant’s face was a clear expression of dread and horror with his gaping eyes and trembling lips, as he grabbed Spock’s wrist with both hands, pushing and pulling, attempting to loosen the Vulcan’s steely grip on him. He twisted his neck, trying to duck his head inside his collar in order to remove himself from his tunic. His body jerked like a chicken pinned to a slaughterhouse hook. 

“GOD, NO!! SPOCK!!” 

Rand jumped up and sprinted towards Spock, abandoning a distressed, hysterical Rose right there on the floor. Begay and Scotty shot out in front of Rand and reached out, their hands outstretched. Begay was yelling at Spock to stop, to put Riley down, to think carefully about what he was doing. 

The two men surrounded Spock and Riley, and Begay tried to grab Spock by his arm, but Spock elbowed him in the shoulder blade, making Begay crumble to Spock’s feet. Scotty tried to grab Riley, but ended up clawing at air as Spock yanked Riley away from him. Spock pulled Riley horizontally while he reached under and punched Riley square in the face. 

Riley’s nose and mouth collapsed under the weight of Spock’s fist, globs of red, pink and white matter exploding onto bare knuckles. The pitiful, writhing squeal that came from Riley was the last thing Rand heard before everything went completely black.

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter VII  
Part 3

The first thing Rand saw when she opened her eyes was the light. 

The amber light of Tijus; soothing like the embers of a dying fire that flickers coyly in the dry, gray ashes. 

Only there was nothing soothing about the light this time. 

The translucent amber was replaced by a stark, jaundice yellow that hung thick in the air. This light didn’t ebb, glow and diffuse like rays coming from a rising or setting sun, but bobbed and congealed like crude coating an ocean after a disastrous oil spill.  
Rand’s body was leaden, and her brain was thick with grogginess. She lied there on her stomach, helpless, like a beached whale. She shut her eyes, not wanting to look at the creeping yellow mass surrounding her now. But it was no use. She could feel it prickle and slither on her skin, her epidermal hairs pulling up as the oily, wriggling sensation coursed damp iciness down her pores. She wanted it to stop. 

God, make it stop! 

She wanted to shake that feeling off of her and she wanted to get up. The heaviness of her body, and her nose and mouth being so close to the floor, made her feel like she was suffocating, especially with the dust particles whisking beneath her, stinging the corner of her eye and singeing her nostrils. 

She had to get up. 

She had to try.

Rand opened her eyes and brought her hands to either side of her, shoulder level. She counted to ten, and took a long, deep, shuttering breath, fighting the impulse to cough against the dust particles that entered her throat. She pushed herself up, but her arms felt hollow, insubstantial, and she fell to the floor like a newborn chick, frail and wet out of its shell. The wind was knocked out of her when her stomach hit the ground, making her gasp violently.

“Shit!”

Rand let herself lie there, so she could build her reserve, until she felt ready to go for another try. 

When she felt ready, Rand drew her lips together with determination, counted to twenty, and made another attempt, she arms shaking just like before, and giving way beneath her again.

“Nooo!”

Rand’s body was racking in angry sobs, her tears running from the bridge of her nose, clouding her eyes, and puddling under her cheek and mouth.

“I refuse to stay down here like a useless jerk,” she said to herself.

She bit her lower lip and breathed rapidly through her nostrils, in and out, in and out, forty times. When she reached forty breaths, she pushed herself up, working past the tingling numbness, the shakiness, until she was high enough off the ground to sit her buttocks onto her heels.

“Ouuu.”

The sensation of sitting on numb, folded legs was too much, so Rand leaned to the side and brought both hands there, hoisting her back so she could bring both legs out from under her in one heave. When she propped her butt on the floor, Rand sighed and laughed in sheer relief as she wiped the tears from her eyes. She didn’t bother to move from where she was; she just sat there and allowed the blood to course her body, to revive her circulation. Then, while she was waiting to get her strength back, Rand looked around the room.

Scotty, Begay, Rose, Riley, and Spock were sprawled, unconscious, on the floor, scattered about like birds dead from and airborne plague. They were pale, thin, their skin was almost transparent, their veins unnaturally visible from where she sat. Rand looked at her own hands and could see the tracks of blue, and how the white of her skin was washed in the sickly yellow of the light. She was shaken, and knew that time was running out for them, that whatever it was that was feeding off of them was quickening its pace now. Rand watched the light ooze between her fingers, and then she knew.

It was the light—it had to be! 

It had to be some sort of entity, some kind of autonomous life force, and not mere sunrays coming from windows. 

Especially since there were no windows anywhere in the meeting room.

Rand frantically looked around the room, to see if any of the others were coming to. She spotted Riley sprawled out on the floor, right next to Spock, and crawled to him. When she reached him, she knelt over his body to look at the damage to his face, and damaged it was. Rand winced as she sat there, looking at what Spock’s rage had done. Riley’s nose was like a pat of butter that had been smeared flat by a table knife, and a dark red gelatinous substance was caking from under his nose and spilling over his mouth, chin, and to the bottom halves of his cheeks. His purple-stained lips ballooned out in distorted, fattened grooves like the bottom of a beefsteak tomato. 

“Goddamn it, Spock…”

Rand spotted bloody white pieces piled like dominoes in Riley’s mouth, and knew immediately that they were his teeth. With what little strength she had, she turned Riley over to his side, facing her, so that his mouth was close to the floor. She gingerly, delicately, reached down with her fingers into his mouth and pulled out whatever loose teeth she was able to fish out and place on the floor. She did what she could to try to keep his mouth open, since he clearly would not be able to breath through his nose, but she knew that Riley needed immediate medical attention that she wasn’t able to give. She would have to try to rouse Dr. Begay. 

Rand scooted over to the doctor, who was, thankfully, showing signs of movement.

“Mathias. Mathias,” she called softly, shaking him gently by his shoulders.

Begay’s eyelids fluttered as he turned his head to the side and cursed under his breath. 

“Welcome back,” said Rand dryly.

“I am so done with this fucking mission,” Begay said wearily.

He brought his arm over his eyes and sighed, exhausted and disgusted, but then lifted his elbow up from his eyes and stared at it for a minute. By the expression on his face, Rand guessed that he was trying to put two and two together on something. Putting his arm down, he looked up at the ceiling, and then all around him. 

“What is all this? It’s like some kind of phantasm!”

“Yeah, I know. It’s all over. I think it may have something to do with all the strange things that have been happening to the crew. That’s why we need to act fast. Riley’s pretty banged up and needs attention. Are you able to get up?”

Dr. Begay nodded weakly. 

“Yeah, just help me up. I’ll be all right.”

“It may be slow going, but let’s do this!” 

Rand, by now, had regained most of her strength. She stood up slowly, and extended her arms to Begay. He reached out with his arms and grabbed her hands as firmly as he could.

She helped hoist him up, working their way from a sitting position, until Dr. Begay was able to stand wobbly on his feet. Swaying a bit, he placed his hands on his temples and rubbed them.

“Whoa…”

“Can you make it?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry. I’m good. Where’s Riley?”

They stepped over to Riley, who was still mercifully unconscious. Begay’s eyes swept over the young lieutenant’s face and let out a whistle.

“God! I don’t know why I’m so surprised, given Mr. Spock’s strength. I’ll do what I can, but if I’m to rebuild his face I’ll need the resources we have on The Enterprise! Watch Riley while I go to the medical room. I can, at least, prop his face up, or something.”

Begay turned and left the room, looking up at the coagulating light as he walked out into the hall, his steps picking up pace. 

Rand knelt down, positioning herself next to Riley. She watched his stomach rise and fall, and hoped that he was unaware enough not to feel any discomfort. 

The yellow light was all around her, Riley, and the others, and she found herself getting a bit jumpy, especially when tiny, pattering sensations started to build steadily over her exposed skin, like a filmy drizzle.

“Ick!”

Rand brushed her hands violently over the back of her neck, cheeks and palms. She shot a glance at the door where Begay had left, and could see that the light in the hall was getting even yellower, almost fluorescent, and it was rushing down the corridor like a river.

“THRUUUUUMMMMMP!”

The sound came from the same direction where the light was headed. 

“THRUUUUUMMMMP…THRUUUUMMMMP…THRUUUUMMMMP…”

Rand knew that it couldn’t be Mathias making that noise, because opening and closing cabinets and draws, and manipulating medical equipment, didn’t sound like that. It sounded more like a body being slammed against a door, or a wall. 

Maybe it was Mathias. Maybe he was in trouble.

Rand looked at Riley one more time, before getting up and heading to the door. The light in the hall had a current to it she could feel, a kind of brushing that replaced the unbearable pattering from moments before.

“Mathias!”

Though she called his name, Rand didn’t make the turn to where the medical lab was, but kept on to where this moving light was guiding her. 

The door at the very end of the hall was surrounded by swirling thick globs of angry, sharp patterns shaded jaundiced yellow, covered in tiny white specks resembling swarming gnats. These rays widened and retracted around the door like a venus flytrap, causing the door to scrape against it’s own frame in staccato jolts and twists.

“THRUUUUMMMMP…THRUUUUMMMMP…THRUUUUMMMMP!!!!”

When Rand stood directly in front of the door, she hesitated. She knew that whatever was responsible for the strange happenings that plagued the crew was behind that door, and if this mission was going to wrap up, she would have to get past her trepidation and see what was outside.

Rand took a couple of steps forward, turned the knob, pulled the door open, and stepped outside.

The desert landscape was consumed in this heaving, whirlpool of deformed light. It bubbled upward, sputtering and oozing out of a humungous canyon carved out of the dune wasteland. Monstrous, jagged incisors piled up in rows that reached deep into this grainy pit, jerking and gasping in thunderous, savage throws. Rand stood by the door, too paralyzed by fear to move or scream as the creature revealed itself.

A humid wave carrying a foul stench hit her with a force that rocked her on her heels, making her stumble, though she didn’t fall. The moist air seeped into her nostrils and throat, nearly choking her. Rand couldn’t quite make out what the odor was; rotting meat, vinegar, feces, ammonia, gangrene, all she knew was that, whatever it was, made her think of decline, a turning, a passing from one form into another.

The smell made her think of death. 

Rand frantically pressed her hand against her nose and mouth and fought the urge to vomit. 

And then, she saw it.

She saw where the smell was coming from.

The teeth of the pit rose up in unison and started to quake, the debris from the desert rising up like a swelling tide, items that were swallowed up and consumed from the planet’s landscape throughout the years. Rocks, clumped sand, trees and scrubs broken in bits, small semi-decomposed reptilian life forms, and human skeletons were pushed up to the surface. 

Human skeletons?

Rand looked closer, horrified but transfixed to the ghastly spectacle that was playing before her eyes. On these human skeletons were shreds of fabric, much of the colors faded almost completely. But, there was one skeleton with the remains of what looked like the breast of a pullover. The glint from the left corner was the silver insignia of the Federation. 

A tear fell silently from Rand’s eye, and her body trembled uncontrollably. She opened her mouth to scream, but the only sound that came out was something weak and stunted. Rand backed away slowly, feeling her way behind to the open door.

Rand’s mind reeled with the knowledge that, now, she had her answer, her answer as to the fate of Dr. Adrienne Ellis’ expedition party.

Right there in front of her.

And that thing was working on her landing party. The mad behavior, the wasting away of the bodies. They were prey being primed for the predator, primed for consumption. To be swallowed up and disappeared into this remote, barren, lonely place. 

Rand slammed the door behind her, and propped her body up against it. She felt the door rattle vehemently on her back, and knew that she wouldn’t be able to contain that massive thing, that thing that was hunting them now. 

“Mathias!”

Rand bounded down the corridor, the light swarming all around her, getting even harsher, sharper. She thought she could feel her heart pounding in her throat, beads of sweat pouring down her forehead, nearly blinding her as the salty drops slid into her eyes. When she reached the meeting room, Dr. Begay was kneeling over Riley’s head, gently sweeping a suctioning device over the facial damage in order to clean and sterilize. 

“Mathias! I sure hope you’re working as fast as you can, ‘cause we’ve got to get him ready and rouse the others!! Now!!”

“Janice, what’s wrong?! It sounded like some kind of sand storm!” said Begay, looking up briefly from his work.

One really had to admire such concentration and dedication, even in a situation of such impending doom.

“I sure as hell wish that’s all it was!!”

“This crazy light’s turning so bright it’s actually making it hard for me to work, almost like being under one of those searchlights!” 

The light was strobing like an arrhythmic heart beat. Globs collided against each other while turning to a fluorescent, piercing glare that engulfed the whole area.

Then, the light and the rattling noise from the door stopped. 

Rand took a deep, ragged breath and wiped her eyes. 

“What was that light, Janice?” asked Begay. 

He looked at her with wariness, as if not wanting to hear her answer, but knowing that he had to.

“That light is the reason why the Ellis expedition disappeared,” she said with grim certainty.

“I was afraid of that. May I ask how?”

“While you were gathering your supplies, I followed the light that was going down the hall to the door that led outside. When I opened the door…I found the source of the light.”

“Which is…”

Rand shook her head. “I can’t really describe it. It looked like a large crater of incisor teeth! It didn’t have a body, unless you count the desert floor as its body! The light was coming from there…well, it seemed to be bubbling out like lava…it was almost like the light would guide you to those jaws of death…”

“Oh, my God…”

“Remember when we were talking about the behavior of the crew with Mr. Spock? These distractions seem to be things in our past that we never really resolved! They hold us, they bind us, and then lure us with the light!” 

Rand took a beat before continuing. “I think that thing feeds on us before the actual kill,” she said quietly. “We’re weak, pale, yet we always have our regular meals.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I didn’t bargain to die like this, did you?”

Begay snorted. “Everything you say adds up. All these obsessions, like Riley’s obstacle courses to try to get back at a gym teacher who screwed his GPA, my memories, Scotty’s childhood stuttering, Rose’s bottomless pit of a stomach…”

He stopped himself in midsentence and chuckled mirthlessly. “Bottomless pit, I can’t believe I just said that.” 

Rand smiled sadly at the unintended pun. “Let’s get the fuck out of here. How’s Riley doing?” 

“He needs surgery, that’s for sure! I was prepping him in the hope that we’d be able to get back to the ship!”

Dr. Begay looked at Rand with steely determination just then. “I really don’t care what it takes. We have to get back to the Enterprise!”

Rand brightened up a bit. “Hey, this is me, remember? I’ve already been converted! I’ll try to get the others up while you continue your work on Riley! I know I’ve said this many times, but let’s do this!”

Rand gave Begay a forced smile and the thumbs up sign, and hoped to God that it wouldn’t take too long to resuscitate the rest of the crew.

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter VII  
Part 4

The landing party stood in a half-circle in the meeting room. The weakened state of their bodies, the deathly white of the their skins, and the ash color under their eyes made one think of photographs of POWs from places like Korea, Vietnam, or the death march of Bataan. Though it had taken some time, Rand was diligent in rousing the rest of the crewmembers from their parasitic slumber. Everyone stood, their faces haggard and shoulders slumped with the weight of both fatigue and uncertain fate. It was only the skittering of their wild eyes that kept the landing party from looking like the walking dead. Riley was not in the circle, but was propped up on a stretcher just a couple of feet behind Begay, who stood with the rest of the crew. 

Rand was the first to speak. She began, haltingly, to talk about her argument with Khobran and how that argument manifested itself on Tijus in obsessive playbacks of their fight, intense guilt, distracting loneliness, and consuming hunger for her lover. She went on to talk about how these all tied to the contents of Dr. Ellis’ tapes, the physical deterioration of the crew, the light, and the monster outside. 

Dr. Begay took his cue and talked about the tragedy he experienced back on the miner’s colony, and how that guilt came to haunt him, in the forms of crippling depression and grotesque hallucinations that would bring him back to the day of the child’s gory death. 

The rest of the crew had a grim moment of recognition that expressed itself in various ways on their faces; a painful, almost degrading kind of making sense of it all.

“I was an overweight child,” began Rose tearfully. “I also had a huge appetite. I was pretty ostracized in middle school, so I changed my eating habits and developed better discipline, and overcame my weight problem. But the way I consumed food on this mission was so unreal! I couldn’t understand why I didn’t gain all that weight back and then some, but I guess I was being fed on, just like you said, Janice.”

Scotty said nothing, but looked on with eyes brimming with sadness. He nodded silently as he listened to Rose and the others.

Spock stood silently as well, his arms folded and head bowed solemnly. After Rose was finished, he raised his head and sighed, his eyes seemingly far away. 

“I must add my own account to everyone else’s experiences on Tijus.” He stopped, and then hesitated before continuing. “I have always had a…shall we say, a somewhat shaky sympathy for humans. This ‘sympathy’ would, at times, veer into confusion, and even astonishment. It is quite clear that this confusion and astonishment magnified itself to the point where it became pure, unbridled racism…if you will. It appears as if all of our fears, regrets, past poor habits or ailments, annoyances and prejudges, all seem to return to us far more pronounced. This entity knows all of these regrettable aspects of ourselves, and is therefore able to show us these emotion albatrosses that we have not been able to get over, or to move on from in our lives.” 

“’Tis charity to show,” snorted Begay in disgust. 

Spock nodded thoughtfully. “Ah, yes. Shakespeare. I do understand the sarcasm behind the quote that you have made, for indeed, there was nothing charitable about this entity showing us these grievances that hold us. The object was to ensnare us before the kill.”

“It was like I said before, this is exactly what happened to the expedition party! Dr. Ellis’ early accounts of their mission started out normal enough, but by the end of the mission all she talked about was her childhood eczema and that light! And it was that light that lured her and the rest of the archeologists to their deaths!” said Rand.

Spock looked around him, and around the room. 

“The light is not here at the present time. We all seem to be of sound mind at the moment, but I don’t how much time we have before circumstances turn against us. Therefore, it is imperative that we act as swiftly as possible.” He hesitated for an uncomfortable moment before turning to Begay. “Doctor, please give me a report on Mr. Riley.”

“Well, his condition is stable. I was able to clean and seal his injuries so that infection wouldn’t start, but he’s in great need of reconstructive surgery.”

Spock looked over Begay’s shoulder to see Riley propped up on an upright stretcher, his body strapped securely by his shoulders, waist, and ankles, his wounds covered in a thin, glistening transparent film. He was sedated, his eyes closed and expression blank in a kind of artificial peace.

For a moment, Rand thought she saw something in Spock’s eyes that looked like sorrow, but it quickly disappeared and was replaced by the familiar pragmatic, emotionless template. He nodded his head and then returned his focus back into the circle, back to Dr. Begay.

“In the event that we are able to return to the ship, I will have to surrender to the authorities for my assault on the lieutenant. I expect…”

“Spock! Be real! It wasn’t you that assaulted Riley! It was that thing out there! We were all in its grip—you were not immune,” said the doctor incredulously.

“You know that the captain would never allow you to do that under the circumstances!” said Rand.

Rose and Scotty chimed in their objections and Spock raised his hand up in order to quiet them down.  
“I have to say that I am grateful for your protestations, and will consider your concerns. But, right now, we must act as quickly as possible. With the light not present at this time, I must assume that we have a window of opportunity to make our escape.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to contact the ship now? That entity must have been blocking our means to reach the ship!”

“I will attempt to do just that, Yeoman. Meanwhile, you all should start preparing for immediate evacuation.”

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter VIII  
Part 1

To say it was a race against time was an understatement, not to mention a tad cliché, though one thing was certain; Rand did not relish the thought of being torn apart and ingested by that thing outside.

Rand stormed into the small, cramped office where she’d worked on Dr. Ellis’ logs, and rummaged through everything that was on the desk, until she spotted the leather pouch and grabbed it. She looked at Dr. Ellis’ recorder and knew that she wouldn’t need it, so she left it there. 

Rand stood by the door and hastily gave the room one last final sweep with her eyes, to make sure that she didn’t need anything else, and then left, not even bothering to close the door behind her, as if doing so would perilously cost her precious time.

“One down, three more tasks to go until you reach that holy grail,” she thought.

While the Enterprise was hardly a goblet with mystical powers, it did offer refuge with its surrounding structure, weapons, and various levels of speed that would take her away to safety from this hellish place. 

Rand picked up her pace. She simply would not feel better until she was in her room packing. She saw the strip of hallway leading to her quarters up ahead, that strip of hallway that made her sigh with relief, the ‘light’ in the dark corridor.

“Almost there,” she thought.

Then, suddenly, in her anxiousness to reach her room, her legs collided together, causing her to lose her balance.  
Rand fell, hard, on her stomach and chest. She grunted in pain, gritted her teeth, and cursed.

“What the fuck just happened here,” she whined out loud. 

Undeterred, she hoisted herself up and realized that the logs were no longer in her hand. She looked around and spotted the envelope just a few feet behind her, walked over and picked it up, and turned.

That’s when she saw him, standing right in the spot where she was headed, that part of the corridor that lead to her room.

Khobran.

Tall, strong, beautiful.

And quite naked.

His deep jade skin was cast with a soft, amber glow that surrounded him, like a halo. Rand stood there, trembling. She knew damn well that this man standing in front of her was not Khobran, not her lover. This entity was pulling all the stops trying to keep the landing party on this planet. What tricks had this thing performed to keep Dr. Ellis’ party here? She looked at this imposter, her sexual and romantic longings stirring up inside her, like rising heat.

“No! No!”

Rand tensed her body, fighting against this urge to go to him, but the stronger the urge became, the more it stripped her of her willpower, her resolve, and she wondered if she and the rest of the crew were really going to make it off of Tijus.

Khobran’s lips formed into a strange smile that was both alluring and vacant, the same smile that he gave her back in the shower room. He turned slowly in the direction of Rand’s quarters and started to walk there. Rand’s throat tightened, for she knew what would happen next.

“No! No! I won’t go! You can’t have me! I won’t let you touch me!”

Her hand gripped tightly around the leather envelope while her other hand pressed against her temple, but she couldn’t stop the hunger for Khobran in his naked, masculine beauty. She felt her body being pulled, her legs moving with a life of their own, following her puppet master. She tried to plant her feet to the floor, but she kept on robotically. 

God, she wanted him. Badly. After a while, it felt like free will, and by the time they both entered her quarters, she was his. She closed the door hastily behind her, almost closing the door on her fingers. 

Khobran moved to the edge of her bed and sat there, sinking into the mattress with his muscular weight. Rand went over to him, situating herself between his open strong thighs. She tossed the envelope behind her, and then pulled off Begay’s robe with abandon while Khobran watched silently. 

As Rand pulled off the nightshirt, Khobran traced his fingers along her exposed skin. When the nightclothes were off and down her ankles, she kicked them away. 

Rand felt different, strange, as she stood nude in front of Khobran. Something had changed.  
She looked down at her body, and saw that it was no longer the wan, wasting mess that it was before. It was now restored gloriously to its lush, buoyant, toned physicality. 

She threw her head back joyously and pressed herself against Khobran’s large, exploring hands, reveling under his firm, roaming fingers. Rand sighed and giggled. She wanted this. She needed this; his touch, his warmth, his intrusion, and she was going to avail herself to all of it, even if all of it was just an illusion. 

Her ripe body came alive under his hands as he scooped them under her full breasts and pressed them together. He swept his thumbs up and along her globes until he reached the pink hardness of her nipples and traced them ever so lightly, the tickly sensation making Rand’s areolas rise and pucker.

Rand parted her lips and drew in her breath as she ran her own hands along the sides of Khobran’s arms, making a detour to his biceps and squeezing them.

As Rand’s ecstasy rose under the strokes of her lover, so did the light. Its soft, amber crystal hues stretched out from behind Khobran and coated everything in the room. She watched him, his full lips parted, his violet eyes darkly lit in the rays as he watched her, his beautiful, rugged features, the emerald color of his skin glazed and warmed in the soft sparkling effulgence. 

“God, even in all this fakery, he’s breathtaking,” she thought.

Khobran ran his hands up from Rand’s nipples, her breasts, along her shoulders, the nape of her neck, to the back of her head. His fingers lacings through her thick, blond hair, he drew her head to his, and kissed her. He sucked her lips, pried them open with his tongue and explored her mouth. Rand threw her arms around Khobran’s neck and pressed forward, urging him by plunging her own tongue into his warm mouth and running it along his teeth, the roof of his mouth. They were like this for a while until he pressed hard against her lips one last time. He pulled back a bit and softly bit and tugged on Rand’s lower lip, then kissed and nibbled along her chin, under her jaw, and down her neck. Khobran continued to kiss down her body, reaching her breasts and nuzzling his nose, lips and chin along and around her full mounds, already aroused from his earlier thumb play.

With his tongue, he traced one of her nipples and then flicked it back and forth, making it even more erect before nipping it and pulling it gently with his teeth. Rand pushed her breasts closer to Khobran, urging him on, tempting him, calling his name and sighing. She reached with her fingers and gathered Khobran’s glossy, thick blue-black hair, bunching the strands into her fists. As Khobran brought his mouth to her other nipple, he simultaneously swept his hands down her back and stomach until one gripped the bottom center of her taunt buttocks, and the other foraged through her pubic hair and found her clit, taking his middle finger and moving it up and down its length, slowly and firmly, while the fingers from his other hand slipped under her resilient cheeks and spread open the swollen lips of her vagina from behind.

Rand jolted against Khobran and pulled his hair harder, whispering incoherently and saying yes yes yes right there! She started to turn her hips while Khobran mercilessly worked her, back and forth, making her wetter and hotter with each stroke. His other thick finger dipped in and out of her damp cunt, while she rocked her hips and ass ever so slowly. 

Khobran detached his mouth from Rand’s breast and gazed at her, licking the bottom of his lip. He removed his hands from her vagina and grabbed her buttocks. He kneaded them vigorously, cupping and rolling the firm glutes with worship. Then, scooping his hands under her cheeks, he lifted her up and tossed her over his head. Rand landed on the bed behind him with a yelp.

Rand reclined on the mattress, her hands gripping the sheets as Khobran prowled towards her. He grabbed her by the waist and lifted her again, until she was suspended upside-down. Carefully, he lowered himself onto the mattress while still holding her. He opened his legs, propping his feet on the bed so that his knees were raised. Then, he lowered Rand with care until she lay on top of him, the both of them having full access to each other’s genitalia. 

Rand hungrily reached for Khobran’s testicles and ran her hand along its bigness, its buoyancy and strength. With one hand, she cupped her fingers over his balls while she held his huge cock with the other, rubbing it against her lips while she ran her tongue over and up his engorged shaft, the veins protruding along its length. Khobran moaned and grunted his approval while he pushed her legs wider until her vaginal lips parted and revealed her ripe pink clit. Grabbing her ass, he pushed her down until her slit was pressing his mouth. He licked along her raw, sensitive bud, first up and down, and then in circular motions while he inserted his middle and index finger deep inside, past her lips and into her cunt as his other hand clutched her buttock. Rand let out a shuddering sigh as Khobran’s fingers slid in and out of her, pressing against her tightening wall. She responded by wrapping her lips around his foreskin and pulling it in one continuous suction, while she clasped his firm balls greedily. She wanted him to cum hard in her mouth, on her breasts and stomach as he screamed her name. Khobran moaned louder, almost bellowing, and she smiled in smug satisfaction as she removed her mouth and started jerking her hand frantically along his member. 

“Spray all over me, you bastard,” she said heatedly.

Rand slid her finger between the crack of his ass while she continued to jerk him off, when suddenly, she found herself whirling and turning in the air until she landed on her back, her arms flung above her head. Khobran was over her now, positioned on his knees, pushing her thighs up so that her own knees were over her shoulders. She could feel herself tremble as he guided his huge, erect cock inside her in one swift push.

“KHOBRAN! OOOHHH SHIT YES! FUCK ME!”

He entered her tight, wet snatch easily, and she responded by getting wetter, hotter, her walls closing and suctioning around him as he buried himself in her depths. Rand’s legs were slung over his broad shoulders, slick and wet with his perspiration, which she could feel cling behind her knees. She grabbed his biceps and squeezed them, urging him on as he probed her relentlessly, his wideness stretching and rubbing the firm elastic walls, sensitive, raw, throbbing around him. 

Rand shook her head with abandon, her own body now drenched in sweat, strands of her hair stuck to the sides of her face and neck. She shut her eyes tight and screamed her lover’s name, not giving a shit who else heard as he pounded into her. She reveled in his alien invasion, his pushing, pulling, the feel of his testicles literally smothering her swollen lips when he grinded against her.

Rand felt herself whirling again, and when she opened her eyes, she found herself on top of Khobran, his magnificent, glistening body underneath her in the throes of passion while his hips rose, driving himself into her. They were thrusting at one another like wild animals, her hands tightening onto Khobran’s chiseled pectorals while his hands gripped into the curves of her hips. He reached further to her buttocks and pulled them apart so Rand’s anus was exposed and open to the light caress of the air in the room, and she responded by gyrating her hips frantically over his taunt, wet member. 

They bucked, writhed against each other, his cock pulling and pushing against her snug passage. She closed in on him, her suctioning walls quickening, pulling him in deeper. She gasped as the sensation between her legs mounted and vibrated, his manhood curving upward and straining as he pressed his pelvis against her. They came long, hard in waves of cresting, engulfing moisture, he in jettison spurts that hit Rand in the far back wall of her cunt, adding to the intensity of her orgasm. Khobran took his middle finger, drenched from his earlier exploration, and inserted it into her asshole, pushing against her passage, causing a delicious friction that, coupled with her orgasm, sent her through the roof. She came in shuttering hits. They cried out together until their orgasms ebbed away, and their bodies went limp and collapsed together, he on the mattress and she on top of him. 

The sweat of their bodies, the heaving of their spent breaths, mingled as they rested together, until Khobran gently pushed Rand off of him, picked her up, and positioned her on the head of the bed, so that she was on her hands and knees, her legs and arms spread low and wide, her tart little ass pointing up jauntily. Rand could feel her clit straining out from under her hairs, droplets of sweat sliding down between her lips, hanging tauntingly off her erect bud. Khobran’s hands caressed her buttocks and hips, sweeping upward until his hands met at the twin peaks, and then, in one clasping movement, pulled them open, stretching her like before. Rand drew in her breath sharply in anticipation as he twirled his tongue around the rim of her anus in a light, fluttery motion, making her quiver. He teased her like this for a time, but then plunged his tongue deep inside her ass.

“OH, GODYOUARESOFUCKINGFILTHY!!”

She pushed forcefully against his tongue, as if he couldn’t go in deep enough for her. With his other hand he reached underneath her and found her wet bud and manipulated it with his middle finger. Rand moaned and sobbed as her body continued to press back on Khobran’s mouth, her hands gripping the sheets on either side of her. Her vaginal walls contracting from deep within, the sensation building in intensity and rising to her lips and clit.

“AAAH, KHOBRAN!! OH,GOD YEEEESSSS…”

THRUMP…THRUMP…THRUMP!

The knocking was followed by the turning of the doorknob, startling Rand beyond reason. 

“Yeoman! Yeoman! Open the door! I can not open it!”

“Wh-wha-what?!”

It is Mr. Spock, Yeoman! We are all ready to beam up! We were concerned when you were not accounted for…”

“Go away! Just go away!”

Rand was not going to let Spock, or anyone else, get in the way of this hot bliss. She was pleasure drunk, light in the head and burning between her legs, the tips of her breasts, inside her anus, her pores tingling at every corner of her skin. Oh, God, make this last forever! I can stay like this forever!

“Yeoman, we are not leaving without you, and time is not something we have in abundance!”

“Go away then! Leave me!” 

“Exactly what is it that you are doing, Ms. Rand?”

“I’M GETTING RIMMED, MR. SPOCK!!”

She rocked her hips furiously while making loud, wordless noises, as if doing so would make the reality go away.

BBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!  
The door crashed wide open, its hinges splintering and flying apart. Rand screamed, jumping headlong under the covers and tucking them around her, like a cocoon.

“NOOOOOOOO! LEEEAAAVVVEEEE MMMEEEE ALOOOOOONNNNEEEEEE! FUCK YOU!”

“Nurse Rose! We are in need of your assistance! Please!”

Rand trembled under the blankets as she heard footsteps coming towards her. 

“I got this, Mr. Spock,” Rose said.

Rand felt the mattress sink beside her as Spock’s footsteps retreated out the room.

“Come on, Janice. We have to get out of here. Come on,” said the nurse gently, reaching under the tucked blankets and pulling it out slowly from under Rand, who was now shaking so uncontrollably that her grip on the covers had weakened. 

Rand was now laid bare, her pale, undernourished body huddled like a premature fetus. The light was gone, and all its hypnotic illusions with it. Her healthy, pink voluptuousness was gone. Khobran was gone. She was cold, and that cold seeped down past her skin, organs, and into her marrow. Rand felt, for the first time, like she was dying. And she was right.

They all were.

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter VIII  
Part 2

The landing party was ready to beam up. Nothing was left to chance. Their equipment was placed just a few feet away from where the crew positioned themselves for their final exit. Lieutenant Riley, still unconscious, was already in his place, his stretcher propped upright by a fold-out metal stand under the foot of the gurney. Standing behind his patient was Dr. Begay, and standing next to him was Scotty. 

The two men turned their attention away from the infirmed navigator when Rand entered the meeting room, looks of concern showing on their faces. She was like an accident victim learning to walk all over again, her steps tepid, hesitant. Nurse Rose had both hands placed on Rand’s shoulders to keep her steady as she whispered gentle encouragement to her.

“How is she, Nurse?” asked Spock, who was standing in his beam-up point in front of the others. 

“She’ll be OK, Mr. Spock. I’ve given her a concentrated vitamin shot, so she won’t collapse during beam-up. She should be able to stand up on her own now.”  
Rand didn’t speak. She didn’t want to, she was so demoralized. She had allowed that thing out there to get inside her, literally. It had known how to lure her, to get inside her head, penetrated her flesh. Allowed was actually too kind a word to use, and she knew it. Truth of it was, she had blatantly offered herself to the beast, and didn’t care about what the circumstances entailed for her or the rest of the landing party. If the crew was unable to get off this planet, she’d be the one responsible, and she didn’t think she was being too hard on herself. 

Rand took small, halting steps to her place up front, next to Mr. Spock, with Rose’s hand moving to the small of her back, guiding her. When Rand got her bearings and was able to situate herself, she turned and nodded to Rose, letting her know she was fine, and so Rose moved to her own spot on Rand’s right hand side. 

“Very well. Our plan is to beam up to the ship first, and then follow up with the equipment. If the entity is to make our escape difficult, then we leave the equipment behind. Is that understood?”

Everyone, except for Rand and Riley, followed with a resounding “Yes, sir!”

Rand could hear the eagerness and anxiety in their voices; high-pitched, rushed. She could also hear how spent they all were, the thinly-veiled raspy tremor in their exclamations. She turned to the others behind her, and they looked to her like they should have been laid on slabs, toe-tagged, but somehow managed to stay alive. Rand knew she looked just as bad, and felt even worse. She wondered if they were truly ever going to make it back to the Enterprise.

Spock pulled his communicator out of his belt, flipped open its hatch, took a long, deep breath, and then spoke into the receiver. His brows were knitted, and Rand could tell that underneath his Vulcan exterior, he was anxious himself. During this time, the landing party was so quiet, so still, that one could hear the sands in the desert wind brush along the compound.

“Spock to Enterprise. Spock to Enterprise. Can anyone read this message?”

“Mr. Spock! Is that you, sir?!” 

Rand ‘s heart leapt from her chest. They were able to make contact! And the voice that came from the ship was Khobran’s. She reveled in its deepness, its beauty. 

“It is indeed, Lieutenant. There is no time for explanations at the present moment. What is important right now is that there have been no fatalities, and the whole landing party is accounted for and prepared for immediate beam-up.”

“I’ve already pinpointed your coordinates, Mr. Spock! Please stand by!” 

“Mr. Spock! The light! It’s returning! Look!” 

Rand’s heart pounded as she looked in the direction to where Nurse Rose was pointing, to a corner of the meeting room where a pin of amber spark started to grow. 

“Lieutenant…”

“…We are beaming you up now, Mr. Spock!”

For Rand, it was like hearing a melody when the low, scrambling hum of the dematerialization began.

But, then it stopped.

“Oh, God,” she blurted out, holding her face in her hands. 

There was a chorus of outcries from the rest of the crew. 

“We must stay calm! Stay in your places, please! Do not panic!”

The whole floor of the meeting room was now submerged in crystal amber beams, bolting and fanning out mechanically, like searchlights. They fluttered and strobed, and then froze. Then, suddenly, the light started to rise, like floodwater. There were more vociferations from everyone, even Spock had a look of wild-eyed panic. Rand pressed her hands against her mouth and cried when her solid form was deconstructed, scrambling like a swarm of bees, and the meeting room fell away into a white-speckled blackness. 

‘Tis Charity to Show  
Chapter VIII  
Part 3

It was the large, strong, warm enveloping of Rand’s hand that lifted her tenderly out of her prolonged lethargy. She opened her lids slowly to the shock of fluorescent glare that pierced laser-like into her eyes. 

“Of course. Sickbay,” she thought groggily.

Her body felt like one long sandbag, even turning her neck was a struggle as she tried to look into the face of the man who was holding her hand.

“Janice, honey. How are you feeling? Talk to me.” 

His voice was so gentle, like the strokes from his thumb gliding back and forth on the back of her hand. Rand smiled when she saw Khobran’s face emerge from the harsh pool of light. Even though she was still weak, that look of adoration on her young lover’s face, coupled with his hand wrapped around hers, fortified her.

“Khobran,” she whispered.

Her voice was thin, hoarse. Khobran leaned in, reaching out with his free hand to stroke the lines of her jaw, her hairline. She closed her eyes, rejoicing in how the tips of Khobran’s fingers made her skin tingle. Tears started to brim behind her closed lids, and she took a long, deep breath of quiet exuberance. Oh, how she had missed this!

“Oh, Janice! You have no idea, in this known universe, just how much you scared me! You literally looked like death standing on that transporter platform!” 

Rand opened her eyes. “I looked like death, huh. Thanks for that,” she chuckled. “God knows I felt like death.”

“Well, you look a lot better now. It took a few days, but the medical staff was able to bring your color back. You’re still a bit thin, but you’re filing out at least. How do you feel? Weak?”

“Like a lead paperweight.”

“Mm, you poor thing. Don’t worry. Dr. McCoy says you’re getting better. You and the rest of the landing party.” 

“Even Riley?”

“Yeah. They’re operating on his face now as we speak. The damage was pretty miserable, but Dr. Truth is confident they’ll be able to rebuild it to its original appearance. Spock really did a number on him.”

You ain’t kiddin’! Thank God of Dr. Begay! He prepped Riley up real well. He’s a good doctor, and, unlike some other doctors I know, a real nice guy,” she quipped.

“Hey, Dr. McCoy had all of sickbay working overtime to get you all back up to speed, so lay off him,” Khobran chided gently with a light squeeze on her hand.

“I guess you can be a good doctor and an asshole, too,” Rand snorted.

They chuckled, Khobran’s being soft and deep, while Rand’s was a bit strained. Afterwards, there was a silence that grew between them, though it wasn’t awkward. The expression on Khobran’s face grew more serious. 

“It was really scary for me, Janice! When the ship tried to make contact with the landing party, all we got was static! The captain even sent a shuttlecraft down to Tijus after awhile when all attempts to reach you failed! But, the strangest thing happened. When the craft reached the planet’s atmosphere, there was some kind of force field blocking its way! Some glassy, amber colored force field. It was as if that planet, or something on that planet, was determined to keep you down there! It was really creepy! I can’t tell you how frightened I was! I couldn’t think straight the whole time you were down there!”

Rand didn’t even bother to hold back the tears, letting them flow down her cheeks.

“I spoke to Mr. Spock in the other ward. He told me what went on down there, or the basics anyway. The basics were enough for me, quite frankly. The very thought of you down on that forsaken planet, going through all that while that thing was feeding off you makes me ill!”

“It was pretty awful, Khobran. I honestly didn’t think we were going to make it! That thing held us prisoner, tormented us by hurling our unresolved issues in our faces…” Rand choked up, unable to finish her sentence.

“I know. Spock told me about that, but not in any real detail.” Khobran hesitated for a bit. Finally, he took a breath, preparing himself. “You know I have to ask you this, Janice. Was our argument among those ‘unresolved issues’ that came to the fore down there? Be honest with me.”

Rand closed her eyes and nodded.

“So, it’s fairly safe to say that I was partly responsible for your ordeal,” he said, his voice slightly cracked.

His fault?! Rand opened her eyes, his statement having a sobering affect on her.

“Your fault, Khobran? I don’t understand…”

“Oh, come on Janice! You and I know that if it wasn’t for the argument I started…”

“Khobran! Listen to me! Listen very carefully! You can’t blame yourself for what was happening to me on Tijus! Don’t be ridiculous! You weren’t even down there!”

“But…”

“Khobran, if it wasn’t our argument it would have been some other unresolved issue! Do you know that I was a relentless nose picker as a child? Could you imagine how my nose would have looked liked at the end of the mission?”

Khobran looked at Rand incredulously, as if not believing that his girlfriend could actually make a joke out of the ordeal. Rand gave him her best deadpan expression and wriggled her nostrils, like a rabbit. Khobran shook his head and laughed, in spite of himself. Rand laughed too, a little more robust this time, but still weak.

“Seriously, though,” she said after the laughter subsided, and her tone grew more somber. “It’s just as much my fault. Frankly, I should have trusted enough in our relationship to tell my family about you. I was just too damn insecure from all those past relationships. You have to believe me, it had nothing, and I repeat, nothing to do with any kind of shame…”

“Janice, I know,” said Khobran softly, tracing the thumb of his free hand along her lips. “I had time to think while you were down there. I know you, I know you too well to honestly think that you didn’t want your parents to know you were involved with an Orion. I know about those jerks you’ve been involved with. I can understand this need not to ‘jinx’ anything.” Khobran cradled Rand’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I really hate what they did to your trust. If anyone’s to blame for our quarrel, it’s those losers! I promise that you can trust me, Janice. If that means I have to keep reassuring you of that fact, then I will! I love you so much, Janice! I’ll never let you down.”

Khobran stroked Rand’s lower lip with his thumb, his touch light, feathery, enticing her to pout it just a little.

“I love you too, Khobran,” she said, her voice quivering slightly as the tears began to peak again, for the third time. 

Khobran leaned in and brushed his lips to hers, kissing her delicately before pulling away. 

“You’re still very weak, darling. So, that means I’ll have to restrain myself for awhile. I can’t wait until you’re in top riding condition again,” he said slyly with a cock of his brow. 

“Mm, good riding condition, huh? Be careful what you wish you, big boy! You’ll need an ice pack by the time I’m finished with you!”

“That can cut both ways, sweetheart!”

He leaned in for another soft kiss, but this time, he added a little tongue for good measure.

“Khobran, honey. When I’m back in ‘top riding condition’, we can contact your parents so that I can apologize to them and explain my behavior. Then, we can contact my parents so that I can introduce you to them, OK?” she proposed between kisses.

Khobran pulled away. At first, he didn’t say anything, he just gazed at her, his large violet eyes swelling with tears that threatened to fall. His smile was sweet, slightly crooked, boyish.

“Oh, Janice! Thank you for that,” he said empathically.

He stroked under her chin, along the length of her neck with his fingers until he reached the hollow of her collarbone. 

“Get some sleep, Janice. I’ll see you later, all right? I want you to close your eyes now.”

And she did, as Khobran continued to stroke along the lines of her face until he reached her forehead, stroking it gently from one temple to the other, lulling her into the most peaceful, gratifying sleep that she’s had in days.

THE END

BASIC OUTLINE: Started on 2/21/12  
Finished on 3/21/12

DETAILED OUTLINE: Started on 6/12  
Finished on 8/7/12

DRAFT ZERO: Started on 8/11/12  
Finished on 11/1/13 

FINAL DRAFT: Dates as chapters appeared on ProvidenceMine’s Star Trek Fanfic Site.


End file.
